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 Read Quote
Stories are different every time you tell them – they allow so many possible narratives. David Antin Read Quote
My mother turned into a professional widow. She couldn’t understand why I wanted to be an engineer; she thought I should be a chicken farmer. David Antin Read Quote
I was very committed to the process of composing, working at poems, putting things together and taking them apart like some kind of experimental filmmaker. David Antin Read Quote
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 Read Quote
I wanted to be an inventor, whatever I thought that meant then. I guess I was thinking of Edison or maybe James Watt. Or maybe even Newton. David Antin Read Quote
I have spoken to expert audiences occasionally, but then no audience is expert over the whole range of things I want to explore. David Antin Read Quote
I hardly remember how I started to write poetry. It’s hard to imagine what I thought poetry could do. David Antin Read Quote
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 Read Quote
When my mother left her second husband, she wrote her autobiography and presented it to him for his approval. David Antin Read Quote