Quote

For several centuries what has passed for song in literary circles was any text that looked like the lyrics for a commonplace melodic setting.

David Antin

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

David Antin
Art Critic
Performance Artist
Poet
Writer
the United States of America
David Abraham Antin
David Abram Antin
Like
Settings
Passed
Melodic
Circles
Corny
Several
Commonplace
Setting
Lyrics
Looked
Text
Century
Centuries
Song
Literary

More quotes by David Antin

Image
I was trying to find out what it was that everybody else understood without giving up my stubborn and hard-won lack of understanding.
David Antin
Image
From this entertainment industry, may the gods of language protect us.
David Antin
Image
My mother turned into a professional widow. She couldnt understand why I wanted to be an engineer she thought I should be a chicken farmer.
David Antin
Image
I've always had a strong feeling for the Statue of Liberty, because it became the statue of my personal liberty.
David Antin
Image
I learned enough Hebrew to stagger through a meaningless ceremony that I scarcely remember.
David Antin
Image
There are editing procedures for talks just as there are editing procedures in jazz improvisation.
David Antin
Image
An art machine is a system whose parts when put in motion act upon each other in such a way as to cause you to see things differently
David Antin
Image
The Sophists' paradoxical talk pieces and their public debates were entertainment in 5th century Greece. And in that world, Socrates was an entertainer.
David Antin
Image
I hardly remember how I started to write poetry. It's hard to imagine what I thought poetry could do.
David Antin
Image
Stories are different every time you tell them - they allow so many possible narratives.
David Antin
Image
Children frequently sing meaningful phrases to themselves over and over again before they learn to make a distinction between singing and saying.
David Antin
Image
I can manage a prose format as long as I keep closer to Laurence Sterne than to Henry James.
David Antin
Image
My way of thinking is very particular and concrete. It doesn't follow a continuous path.
David Antin
Image
I'm aware of my audience in a way, and I do try to engage with them while I'm trying to go about my business of thinking. I believe they help me by providing a focus.
David Antin
Image
I'm not sure what theory is, unless it's the pursuit of fundamental questions.
David Antin
Image
You pay your money, you take your choice. I get the audience my language attracts and I lose the ones it repels.
David Antin
Image
When you grow up in a family of languages, you develop a kind of casual fluency, so that languages, though differently colored, all seem transparent to experience.
David Antin
Image
The ancient Greek oral poets all had this anxiety about the deficiencies of their memories and always began poems by praying to the muse to help them remember.
David Antin
Image
I had no idea where these kids at a small private college in the San Fernando Valley were coming from, why they were coming to hear me, or what they needed to know.
David Antin
Image
While I've had a great distaste for what's usually called song in modern poetry or for what's usually called music, I really don't think of speech as so far from song.
David Antin