American poetry is always about defining oneself individually,claiming one's right to be different and often to break taboos. Diane Wakoski More Quotes by Diane Wakoski More Quotes From Diane Wakoski Poetry is the art of saying what you mean but disguising it. Diane Wakoski poetry-is mean art Learning to live what you're born with is the process, the involvement, the making of a life. Diane Wakoski knowing-who-you-are born process I write in the first person because I have always wanted to make my life more interesting than it was. Diane Wakoski writing interesting firsts Still, language is resilient, and poetry when it is pressured simply goes underground. Diane Wakoski resilient stills language So, I've never been politically correct, even before that term was available to us, and I have really identified with other people who don't want to be read as just a black poet, or just a woman poet, or just someone who represents a cause, an anti-Vietnam war poet. Diane Wakoski black war people I am not political as a person. Diane Wakoski political persons I definitely wish to distinguish American poetry from British or other English language poetry. Diane Wakoski british language wish I have always wanted what I have now come to call the voice of personal narrative. That has always been the appealing voice in poetry. It started for me lyrically in Shakespeare's sonnets. Diane Wakoski narrative voice literature I think I'm a very good reader of poetry, but obviously, like everybody, I have a set of criteria for reading poems, and I'm not shy about presenting them, so if people ask for my critical response to a poem, I tell them what works and why, and what doesn't work and why. Diane Wakoski reading people thinking I think that great poetry is the most interesting and complex use of the poet's language at that point in history, and so it's even more exciting when you read a poet like Yeats, almost 100 years old now, and you think that perhaps no one can really top that. Diane Wakoski years interesting thinking I think that's what poetry does. It allows people to come together and identify with a common thing that is outside of themselves, but which they identify with from the interior. Diane Wakoski together people thinking I'm passing on a tradition of which I am part. There's a long line of poets who went before me, and I'm another one, and I'm hoping to pass that on to other younger, or newer, poets than myself. Diane Wakoski literature passing-on long Sometimes the archaism of the language when it's spoken is why we are all in love with the Irish today. Diane Wakoski language literature today I'm perfectly happy when I look out at an audience and it's all women. I always think it's kind of odd, but then, more women than men, I think, read and write poetry. Diane Wakoski women writing thinking My poems are almost all written as Diane. I don't have any problems with that, and if other women choose to identify with this, I think that's terrific. Diane Wakoski women problem thinking I think one of the things that language poets are very involved with is getting away from conventional ideas of beauty, because those ideas contain a certain attitude toward women, certain attitudes toward sex, certain attitudes toward race, etc. Diane Wakoski attitude sex thinking What line breaks add to prose prosody is a connection between eye Diane Wakoski creating eye add Distinctly American poetry is usually written in the context of one's geographic landscape, sometimes out of one's cultural myths, and often with reference to gender and race or ethnic origins. Diane Wakoski landscape race sometimes But I don't think that poetry is a good, to use a contemporary word, venue, for current events. Diane Wakoski events use thinking But I am not political in the current events sense, and I have never wanted anyone to read my poetry that way. Diane Wakoski events political way
