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If a poem is not memorable, there's probably something wrong. One of the problems of free verse is that much of the free verse poetry is not memorable.

Robert Morgan

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Robert Morgan
Age: 79
Born: 1944
Born: October 3
Biographer
Novelist
Poet
Hendersonville
North Carolina
Probably
Wrong
Free
Verse
Problem
Verses
Much
Memorable
Something
Poem
Poetry
Problems

More quotes by Robert Morgan

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Part of what we love about poetry is the fact that it seems ancient, that it has an authority of ancient language and ancient form, and that it's timeless, that it reaches back.
Robert Morgan
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A lot of my students are Asian-American, and it has been thrilling to watch them break through the stereotypes into something alive and surprising.
Robert Morgan
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Some people swear by writing courses, but whether it really helps American poetry, I have doubts.
Robert Morgan
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We have a lot of long narrative poems written in the 20th century, but they're not very well known, and they're not read by very many people.
Robert Morgan
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I don't think poetry is something that can be taught. We can encourage young writers, but what you can't teach them is the very essence of poetry.
Robert Morgan
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I considered going to film school I took a course in film and was very interested in filmmaking as well as film writing.
Robert Morgan
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The young people have MTV and rock and roll. Why would they go to read poetry? Poetry belongs to the Stone Age. It awakens in us perceptions that go back to those times.
Robert Morgan
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Some people want to call me an Appalachian writer, even though I know some people use regional labels to belittle.
Robert Morgan
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I love to create interesting textures with language. You can do it as long as it seems like a discovery.
Robert Morgan
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I did not have a very literary background. I came to poetry from the sciences and mathematics, and also through an interest in Japanese and Chinese poetry in translation.
Robert Morgan
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Teaching writing over the years intrudes on your own writing in important ways, taking away some of the excitement of poetry.
Robert Morgan
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In the later books I am much more at home in the use of language to describe things. I had never thought of that until a critic pointed that out.
Robert Morgan
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Young writers find their first audience in little magazines, and experimental writers find their only audience there.
Robert Morgan
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The Language Poets are writing only about language itself. The Ashbery poets are writing only about poetry itself. That seems to me a kind of dead end.
Robert Morgan
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I think that it's more likely that in my 60s and 70s I will be writing poetry rather than fiction.
Robert Morgan
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I encourage students to pursue an idea far enough so they can see what the cliches and stereotypes are. Only then do they begin to hit pay dirt.
Robert Morgan
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One of the most powerful devices of poetry is the use of distortions. You can go from talking about the way a minute passes to the way a century passes, or a lifetime.
Robert Morgan
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Maybe the example of Southern fiction writing has been so powerful that Southern poets have sort of keyed themselves to that.
Robert Morgan
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We don't want to live in the dark moods of imponderable mystery, but neither do we want to miss them altogether. they allow us to emerge from the tender sadness of the manger to sing with the angels in the skies above.
Robert Morgan
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I write as a way of keeping myself going. You build your life around writing, and it's what gets you through. So it's partly just curiosity to see what you can do.
Robert Morgan