Anne Stevenson

Found 11 thoughts of Anne Stevenson

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

After the Fall was written mainly as a joke. It wasn't a personal love poem at all, I was just feeling fed up with housekeeping and children.

Blake has always been a favorite, the lyrics, not so much the prophetic books, but I suppose Yeats influenced me more as a young poet, and the American, Robert Frost.

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

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

My earlier poems were sadder than my poems are today, perhaps because I wrote them in confusion or when I was unhappy. But I am not a melancholy person, quite the contrary, no one enjoys laughing more than I do.

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

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

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.

Sylvia Plath was just a month and a half older than I, and when she committed suicide I was only 30 - and very shocked and sorry. I never knew her personally.

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