I came to teaching late - not until my forties - which is one reason why I'm not burned out. Alison Hawthorne Deming More Quotes by Alison Hawthorne Deming More Quotes From Alison Hawthorne Deming As deaths have accumulated I have begun to think of life and death as a set of balance scales. When one is young, the scale is heavily tipped toward the living. With the first death, the first consciousness of death, the counter scale begins to fall. Death by death, the scales shift weight until what was unthinkable becomes merely a matter of gravity and the fall into death becomes an easy step. Alison Hawthorne Deming death fall thinking I had real concerns about the relationship between nature and culture and places I wanted to write about... I thought, well, maybe I should try prose. It was a real struggle to begin because, first of all, there were so many words on the page - it was terrifying... Beginning was awful. Alison Hawthorne Deming real struggle writing Poetry is one of the most full ways of discovering what it feels like to be a human being in this particular moment, in this particular set of concerns. It's all about discovery. Alison Hawthorne Deming moments discovery way Poetry is a really helpful instrument. It's so physical; the musicality becomes a sort of expression of the body. The mind is there too, in the formal aspects of the poem. The emotions are there in the way the senses gather things into the poem. Alison Hawthorne Deming body expression mind I'm trying to learn something about making a balance between the inner life and the outer life. I wouldn't write if I didn't need to be making those discoveries, if I didn't feel the perpetual ignorance of being a human being. Alison Hawthorne Deming ignorance writing discovery I'm always writing towards a discovery. When I'm writing poems in particular, I'm often writing because a few images coalesced in my mind and I thought, "I wonder why these images are abrading against each other. I wonder what happens if put them in a poem and explore them." I'm trying to learn something every time I write a poem. Alison Hawthorne Deming mind writing discovery I think I started writing as a young person because I felt a lot of psychic confusion and emotional confusion, and writing was a way to sort it out. You know, to externalize it, sort it out, put it down, look at it, and hopefully it would become clearer. Alison Hawthorne Deming psychics emotional writing Life seems complicated to me; I feel confused a lot of the time by life. I feel confused about the fact that we can be so tender as creatures to one another, and so monstrous at the same time. Alison Hawthorne Deming confused complicated facts One needs to be on guard against expecting external powers to decide when you can take yourself seriously as an artist. It can be a long wait - and lead to endless appetite. Alison Hawthorne Deming artist waiting long Writers want recognition, audience, some corroboration that all those hours at the desk and in daydreams add up to something in the esteem of others. Alison Hawthorne Deming recognition want add Teachers have been heroes to me, as well as artists and writers, and I'm honored to be among their ranks. There is always a lot of grousing about the academy. I suppose it comes from our all-American anti-authoritarianism. Alison Hawthorne Deming artist hero teacher I had wanted for so many years to feel that writing really was at the center of my life, not something I did in my spare time. So the writing and teaching feel in some way to be one thing - the personal engagement and the social engagement good partners. Alison Hawthorne Deming teaching writing years Teachers have had a great effect on me as a child. I've always loved school and had a great appetite for learning. I cried when it was time to go back home and tried to jump from my mother's moving car to run back there. Alison Hawthorne Deming mother running teacher I'm filled with despair. We live in a pathological culture filled with rage and bitterness and greed. The hate-mongering and racism is reaching a frightening pitch. Alison Hawthorne Deming greed hate racism What keeps me level is the refusal to let the best of human aspirations die in the face of the challenges. I make a moral decision to be hopeful. Alison Hawthorne Deming hopeful decision challenges For me teaching has provided community and livelihood and the satisfaction of passing along what I've learned to others. Alison Hawthorne Deming community satisfaction teaching I like to joke that I started writing long poems out the anxiety over ending and starting poems. It just seemed easier to keep going. Alison Hawthorne Deming anxiety writing long I like the dance between sustained focus and digression that the long poem invites. A controlling metaphor helps to sustain the long poem. Alison Hawthorne Deming focus helping long I like to use research to enlarge the poem. And sometimes a rhetorical or syntactical gesture stitches the poem along. Alison Hawthorne Deming stitches research use I do think that the long poem speaks for an inner need for continuity. We live in a time of so many losses, disruptions, and distractions, that the need for a sense of the ongoing is quite real. The long poem is very satisfying in offering the psyche a model of coherence. Alison Hawthorne Deming real loss thinking
