“The thing I learned is that the work is getting done by people who dig in and work on a particular project: the people who spend 20 years sustaining a theater for black teenagers in Chicago; the people who reintroduce sticklebacks into Strawberry Creek in Berkeley and then wait patiently for the first egrets to show up.” PeopleYearsFirstsDoneShowsWaitingBlackParticularProjectsTheaterTeenagerChicagoSustainingStrawberriesCreeksBerkeley Author:Robert Hass
“I think it's true to say that in 1973 I could read every book of poems that was published in a year, and I did.” ThinkingYearsBook Author:Robert Hass
“It seems like every ten years there's a book that says that poetry used to be popular, and now it's not, but we really have no way of knowing, in terms of relative size of audience and other things, exactly who readers were.” WayYearsBookSeemsUsedTermAudienceKnowingReaderTenSizeUsed To BeRelative Author:Robert Hass
“In the beginning of the 19th century, maybe forty percent of women and fifty percent of men could produce a signature, which meant that they'd had at least three years of education because it was in third grade that people started penmanship in the 19th century. And of course black people could get killed if they got caught teaching themselves to read in some parts of the country.” PeopleIfsMenYearsCountryThreeCoursesBlackTeachingCenturyProducePercentThirdsCaughtFiftyGradesFortyBlack PeopleThree Years19th CenturySignaturesThird GradePenmanship Author:Robert Hass
“Like everyone else, I was at least peripherally involved in the antiwar movement. You woke up every morning feeling tormented about what was going on in Vietnam. It seemed to a lot of us like a catastrophe from the very beginning, inflicting immense and needless suffering on not only the American soldiers but on a lot of innocent peasants who were caught in a Cold War proxy battle - two million Vietnamese died during those years, and you woke up every morning knowing that that was going on.” YearsTwoWarFeelingsSufferingMorningMillionsKnowingMovementColdInvolvedBattleDiedSoldierCaughtInnocentVietnamAntiwarImmenseEvery MorningCold WarCatastrophePeasantsVietnameseAmerican SoldierProxy Author:Robert Hass
“The Earth forgives the previous year every year.” YearsEarthForgivingPrevious Years Author:Robert Hass
“When I was in college, I lost my scholarship one year. I had enough money for tuition, but not room and board. So I camped in the hills.” YearsEnoughLostRoomsCollegeHillsBoardsScholarshipHad EnoughTuition Author:Robert Hass
