I was very interested in American poetry for many years. Much less now. Norman MacCaig More Quotes by Norman MacCaig More Quotes From Norman MacCaig When I go fishing I like to know that there's nobody within five miles of me. Norman MacCaig fivemilesfishing However, I learned something. I thought that if the young person, the student, has poetry in him or her, to offer them help is like offering a propeller to a bird. Norman MacCaig offeringliteraturebird I learned words, I learned words; but half of them Norman MacCaig exerciseliarslooks All I write about is what's happened to me and to people I know, and the better I know them, the more likely they are to be written about. Norman MacCaig literaturewritingpeople And the second question, can poetry be taught? I didn't think so. Norman MacCaig taughtliteraturethinking There are some friends you don't meet for twenty years and when you meet them again it's as if no twenty years has happened - you're lucky when that happens. I feel the same about books. Norman MacCaig twentiesbookyears All those authors there, most of whom of course I've never met. That's the poetry side, that's the prose side, that's the fishing and miscellaneous behind me. You get an affection for books that you've enjoyed. Norman MacCaig fishingsidesbook Well, I love fishing. I wouldn't kill a fly myself but I've no hesitation in killing a fish. A lot of men are like that. No bother. Out you come. Thump. And that's not the only reason. Norman MacCaig fishingliteraturemen A terrible thing about getting oldish is that your friends start dying, and in the last ten years I have lost seven or eight of my closest. Norman MacCaig eightdyingyears Landscape is my religion. ...God in a green legend, I lean over the pool In a testament of leaves. I dangle my twinkling mood Before me in a cool cave roofed with branches And floored with a skin of water. Norman MacCaig cavesskinswater When I was asked to be Writer in Residence at Edinburgh I thought, you can't teach poetry. This is ridiculous. Norman MacCaig edinburgheuthanasiaridiculous People haven't got the interest in long long works these days. A lack of interest which I share. Norman MacCaig literaturelongpeople I only keep books that I like very much. Otherwise I'd throw them out. Norman MacCaig literaturebook I just didn't want to shoot other people. Norman MacCaig literaturewantpeople I said I have no powers of invention. Well, I also have no powers of mimicry. Norman MacCaig mimicryinventionliterature I used to have a great love for Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, the big boys of the last century. Norman MacCaig great-loveliteratureboys In some ways I'm a reticent man, and for quite a number of years there wasn't very much of my real true deep feelings in my writing. Norman MacCaig realwritingmen It's like breathing in and out to me. It's like having a conversation with someone who isn't there. Because it has to be addressed to somebody - not a particular person, or very rarely. Norman MacCaig breathingliteratureconversation In fact a lot of them I think are absolute baloney. Those Charles Olsens and people like that. At first I was interested in seeing what they were up to, what they were doing, why they were doing it. They never moved me in the way that one is moved by true poetry. Norman MacCaig literaturepeoplethinking When I talk of hearing a poet's voice speaking, I always think of it as in the presence of the man. Norman MacCaig voicementhinking
