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Diane Wakoski Quotes

Poet

Diane Wakoski is an American poet born on August 3, 1937. Her poetry is known for its unique style and profound emotional expression, exploring themes such as personal identity, love, death, and religion.

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Famous Diane Wakoski Quotes

“From reading a previous answer, you know that I consider all those aspects to be part of American cultural myth and thus they figure into good American poetry, whether the poet is aware of what he is doing or not.”

Knows Reading Literature Answers Figures Poet Aspect Myth American Poetry

Author:Diane Wakoski

“Poems reveal secrets when they are analyzed. The poet's pleasure in finding ingenious ways to enclose her secrets should be matched by the reader's pleasure in unlocking and revealing these secrets.”

Way Should Pleasure Secret Poet Reader Findings Revealing Ingenious Matched Unlocking

Author:Diane Wakoski

“There are rituals not structures for being a poet, drinking too much, taking too many drugs, being a lady chaser, having your nervous breakdown, being irresponsible about money.”

Too Much Poet Drug Structure Drinking Nervous Ritual Irresponsible Breakdown Nervous Breakdown Drinking Too Much Chasers Being A Lady

Book:Emerald Ice: Selected Poems, 1962-1987

Source: Emerald Ice: Selected Poems, 1962-1987

“American poetry, like American painting, is always personal with an emphasis on the individuality of the poet.”

Literature Painting Poet Individuality Individualism Emphasis American Poetry

Author:Diane Wakoski

“I had been dreaming a complicated dream about helping poets revise their poems, so that each ending would open like a flower. I was not arguing, but engaged in a rousing discussion.”

Helping Dream Poet Flower Complicated Arguing Discussion Engaged

Author:Diane Wakoski

“American poets celebrate their bodies, very specifically, as Whitman did.”

Body Poet Celebrate Hymns Celebrate Life

Author:Diane Wakoski

“I think one of the things that language poets are very involved with is getting away from conventional ideas of beauty, because those ideas contain a certain attitude toward women, certain attitudes toward sex, certain attitudes toward race, etc.”

Thinking Ideas Certain Literature Language Sex Race Attitude Poet Involved Etc Get Away Conventional

Author:Diane Wakoski

“I think that great poetry is the most interesting and complex use of the poet's language at that point in history, and so it's even more exciting when you read a poet like Yeats, almost 100 years old now, and you think that perhaps no one can really top that.”

Thinking Years Use Literature Language Interesting Poet Exciting Complexes Poetry Is Most Interesting Great Poet Great Poetry Yeats

Author:Diane Wakoski

“I'm passing on a tradition of which I am part. There's a long line of poets who went before me, and I'm another one, and I'm hoping to pass that on to other younger, or newer, poets than myself.”

Long Literature Lines Poet Tradition Passing Passings Long Lines Passing On

Author:Diane Wakoski

“So, I've never been politically correct, even before that term was available to us, and I have really identified with other people who don't want to be read as just a black poet, or just a woman poet, or just someone who represents a cause, an anti-Vietnam war poet.”

People Want War Literature Causes Black Term Poet Available Vietnam Vietnam War Politically Correct Anti Vietnam War

Author:Diane Wakoski

About the Author

Born: August 3, 1937
Known for: Poet
Quotes: 41

Books & Sources

Emerald Ice: Selected Poems, 1962-1987Related source material

Emerald Ice: Selected Poems 1962-1987Related source material

SmudgingRelated source material

Toward a new poetryRelated source material

Trilogy: Coins & Coffins: Discrepancies and Apparitions; The George Washington PoemsRelated source material

Virtuoso Literature for Two and Four HandsRelated source material

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