Latest Elaine Equi Quotes from Interviews

• What I like best about teaching is that it allows me to explore my own interest with a group.

  Elaine Equi

  Teaching, Interest

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• The inner and outer, the visible and invisible, the abstract and concrete - you've got to get the balance right (not that I do, but it's something to aim for).

  Elaine Equi

  Balance, Invisible, Abstract

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• I think the more stability a person has, the more they can follow esoteric or intellectual pursuits.

  Elaine Equi

  Thinking, Intellectual, Esoteric

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• The earth has always supported me in all my endeavors. I trust it.

  Elaine Equi

  Earth, Endeavor

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• I tend to be a pretty spacey and scattered person, so anything that makes me feel "grounded" comes as a welcome relief.

  Elaine Equi

  Relief, Welcome, Feels

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• When I think of someone equating poems and machines, it makes me feel like that person would like poems to have a more obvious use value in society. They're not happy with poetry being this ephemeral, indefinable thing. They want it to be "real."

  Elaine Equi

  Real, Thinking, Machines

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• In a machine, every part has a function. In a poem, every word needs to be there.

  Elaine Equi

  Needs, Machines, Function

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• The postcard is sacred to me. It makes me sad that no one sends them very much anymore because of email and texting. I still like to buy them, but they've lost their original function and now just seem like reminders or mementos of what they used to be.

  Elaine Equi

  Sacred, Email, Texting

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• I can appreciate the idea that with e-books more people would publish, the work would be easier to disseminate, and that it could even be interactive. Being a lover of photography, I especially like the idea that you could include lots of pictures - full-color pictures - with your writing. That to me is exciting! We'll all have to stay tuned to see what develops.

  Elaine Equi

  Photography, Book, Writing

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• I wonder if books become in essence "files" if people wouldn't write them differently. I'm used to writing print books and I enjoy the slowness of the whole process. It makes me more deliberate about everything I say.

  Elaine Equi

  Book, Writing, Essence

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• I never liked the philosophy that you can have everything and be everything and that something is wrong if you don't want that. I'm terrible at multitasking and find it hard to believe that no one protests this general trend of using the rhetoric of self actualization to sell you faster and faster phones and computers, BlackBerrys, etc.

  Elaine Equi

  Philosophy, Believe, Phones

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• I don't like speed. I would have made a terrible Futurist. Even when I did take drugs, I never liked amphetamines and much preferred the slow taffy-pull of time that you get with opiates.

  Elaine Equi

  Drug, Opiates, Amphetamines

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• Technology sounds quick and easy, but it ends up taking up too much of your time.

  Elaine Equi

  Technology, Sound, Too Much

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• There are fewer and fewer philosophies that everyone subscribes to. We don't seem to have as many beliefs in common as we used to. Also, we interact much more online. We have all these gadgets to help us manage different aspects of our lives.

  Elaine Equi

  Philosophy, Different, Gadgets

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• In the past things were either in your head (subjective, imaginary, fantasy) or else they were part of the outside world - cold, hard, concrete materialistic reality. If you want to look at it in terms of poetry, there was surrealism and objectivism. Now there's the veil of the virtual in between. The old opposition between inner and outer doesn't quite capture it, especially as it contains elements of both. It's real but not concrete.

  Elaine Equi

  Real, Past, Looks

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• In order for poetry to exist there has to be not-poetry to contrast it with.

  Elaine Equi

  Order, Contrast

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• I can never plan out what direction my poems will take in terms of either form or content. I wish I could but it doesn't work that way for me. If I try to write something, I'd probably end up doing the opposite.

  Elaine Equi

  Writing, Opposites, Wish

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• I don't write every day, but if I go more than a couple of months without writing, I begin to get a little nervous. I usually have bursts of poems. Five or six come together and then I slack off and want to do something else.

  Elaine Equi

  Couple, Writing, Together

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• I like to look at the interface between words and pictures and wonder about which comes first, a sort of chicken-or-egg type of question.

  Elaine Equi

  Eggs, Looks, Firsts

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• When I shut off the verbal, I like to escape into the visual.

  Elaine Equi

  Visuals

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• I have a lot of respect for advertising. If I didn't teach and could go back in time, I might try and become a copywriter. I especially like print ads that combine a photo with a short caption or tag line.

  Elaine Equi

  Trying, Lines, Might

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• In Chicago, if you tell someone you're a writer, they look at you suspiciously - as if to say "yeah, right." In New York, people don't question the idea. If you say you're a writer, that's what you are.

  Elaine Equi

  New York, Ideas, People

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• Sometimes you get lit students that know a lot about the canon but virtually nothing about contemporary poetry and vice versa. I like to mix things up.

  Elaine Equi

  Vices, Students, Sometimes

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• It's my experience that people write better when they feel at ease and free to experiment, rather than being in a competitive, hypercritical atmosphere. There are always a few students who want me to be tough or harsh, but it's really not my style.

  Elaine Equi

  Writing, People, Atmosphere

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• I think poetry workshops get a bad rap. I'm sure some aren't good, but in general, I like the format. I try and keep mine pretty informal. Sometimes we have wine or sake, and we read aloud, and we talk.

  Elaine Equi

  Rap, Wine, Thinking

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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