I play with language a great deal in my poems, and I enjoy that. I try to condense language, that is, I try to express complicated but I hope real emotions as simply as possible. But that doesn't mean the poems are simple, just that they are as truthful as I can make them.

Anne Stevenson

Categorized in : Mean Simple Real

Each word bears its weight, so you have to read my poems quite sl... by Anne Stevenson

Each word bears its weight, so you have to read my poems quite slowly.

poetry weight bears

There's no friend like someone who has known you since you were f... by Anne Stevenson

There's no friend like someone who has known you since you were five.

no-friends friends five

The sea is as near as we come to another world. by Anne Stevenson

The sea is as near as we come to another world.

ocean sea water

A poem might be defined as thinking about feelings - about human... by Anne Stevenson

A poem might be defined as thinking about feelings - about human feelings and frailties.

poetry feelings thinking

I remain loyal to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert in music and to Shakespeare and Jane Austen in literature.

austen loyal literature

Yes, I do often write poems from the mind, but I hope I don't ign... by Anne Stevenson

Yes, I do often write poems from the mind, but I hope I don't ignore feelings and emotions.

mind feelings writing

Blackbirds are the cellos of the deep farms. by Anne Stevenson

Blackbirds are the cellos of the deep farms.

blackbirds farms bird

I am now seventy, rather glad, really, that I won't live to see the horrors to come in the 21st century.

horror century glad

You've got criminal courts and child welfare officials refusing to do their jobs and protect children so they can shift the cases over to family court where predatory professionals can turn a dirty buck off the atrocities committed against children.

jobs children dirty

There is far too much literary criticism of the wrong kind. That is why I never could have survived as an academic.

too-much kind criticism

Poets should ignore most criticism and get on with making poetry. by Anne Stevenson

Poets should ignore most criticism and get on with making poetry.

poet criticism should

I have always made my own rules, in poetry as in life - though I have tried of late to cooperate more with my family. I do, however, believe that without order or pattern poetry is useless.

useless order believe

I think a poet, like a painter, should be a craftsperson. by Anne Stevenson

I think a poet, like a painter, should be a craftsperson.

poet should thinking

I don't like poetry that just slaps violent words on a canvas, as... by Anne Stevenson

I don't like poetry that just slaps violent words on a canvas, as it were.

slap violent canvas

I write, or used to write, to explain to myself situations I couldn't otherwise solve or understand. Meditation comes very naturally to me.

used meditation writing

When everything is for 'fun' nothing is for the good. by Anne Stevenson

When everything is for 'fun' nothing is for the good.

fun

My soul, by Anne Stevenson

My soul,

my-soul soul ifs

I dislike literary jargon and never use it. Criticism has only one function and that is to help readers read and understand literature. It is not a science, it is an aid to art.

hygiene science art

I like rhyme because it is memorable, I like form because having to work to a pattern gives me original ideas.

memorable giving ideas

Mind led body by Anne Stevenson

Mind led body

silence mind desire