Bringing science into poetry is one way of acknowledging some of the richest stuff that is in my cultural moment. Alison Hawthorne Deming More Quotes by Alison Hawthorne Deming More Quotes From Alison Hawthorne Deming What I like about teaching is the discipline of finding words to unpack the artistic process. And I admire the drive in students who want to write, the mystery of how artistic talent unfolds. Alison Hawthorne Deming discipline teaching writing I came to teaching late - not until my forties - which is one reason why I'm not burned out. Alison Hawthorne Deming late teaching reason-why We're nature. Our minds are nature. Our desire to make poetry is nature. Alison Hawthorne Deming poetry-is mind desire I'm always doing poems from a place of not-knowing, a place of ignorance in a way. Alison Hawthorne Deming not-knowing ignorance knowing As writers, the world is not about individual expression entirely because we are producing works of literature and getting them out into the world. Alison Hawthorne Deming literature expression world I'm interested in thinking about how are we contributing to the culture, what we can write that might help us deepen the culture, make us more reflective, make us more empathetic, make us feel our connectedness in other ways. Alison Hawthorne Deming writing culture thinking I'm just really interested in the interface of the individual with the collective. I think that's where the arts live. Alison Hawthorne Deming individual art thinking Sometimes it gets talked about as if life is all about the individual, and I don't think it is. I'm really interested in what writing can contribute to a kind of cultural intelligence. Alison Hawthorne Deming kind writing thinking I'm always trying to ask myself both "Who am I as an individual?" and "What are the cultural forces that have made me the person that I am?" How can I understand myself as a cultural creature as well as an individual? I'm really obsessed with that question, and always asking my students to consider it. Alison Hawthorne Deming always-trying students asking I like bringing poetry's focus on figurative language and compression into the essay. Of course, the musical properties of language, the cadence of the sentence, are really important to me in prose. Alison Hawthorne Deming musical focus important I grow very impatient with prose writers who don't pay attention to the cadence of the sentence. If you start as a poet, you're wooed by the music of language; you want to put that into your practice. Alison Hawthorne Deming practice want attention I'm always trying to bring as many poetic properties as possible to the essay without making it too overburdened. Alison Hawthorne Deming essays poetic always-trying I do think environmental writers need to be forward thinking, not just lamenting our losses. We do need to lament; in some ways it's important to be the vessels for grief for all that's being lost on our planet. But we also need to be forward thinking. Alison Hawthorne Deming grief loss thinking For the poets, my hope is that they will, quite simply, feel the obligation to be really informed about the situation in which we find ourselves, in terms of our imperiled planet. You should inform yourself so deeply that it becomes part of your nature, part of your voice. Alison Hawthorne Deming poet voice should I don't want people to write programmatic environmental poems, but I think sustainability should become deeply a part of the consciousness of poetry - an impulse toward compassion, empathy, and social justice. Alison Hawthorne Deming compassion writing thinking As poets, we don't accept oppression; we are about a freedom of spirit, or whatever you want to call it. I think environmental concerns have to go to the deep place, so we speak from a place of great empathy for the planet - for the disadvantaged people, animals, places, cultures. Alison Hawthorne Deming animal people thinking When we're writing anything, we're bearing witness to the time we live in and how it's different from any other time in history. Alison Hawthorne Deming bearing-witness different writing
