Home / Quotes / Quote by Alison Hawthorne Deming

Quote by Alison Hawthorne Deming

“I'm trying to learn something about making a balance between the inner life and the outer life. I wouldn't write if I didn't need to be making those discoveries, if I didn't feel the perpetual ignorance of being a human being.”

Quote by Alison Hawthorne Deming

Author

Alison Hawthorne Deming

Alison Hawthorne Deming is an accomplished American poet, born in 1946. Her poetry is characterized by its focus on natural themes and local history, and has garnered widespread acclaim from readers. more

You May Also Like

“Poetry is a really helpful instrument. It's so physical; the musicality becomes a sort of expression of the body. The mind is there too, in the formal aspects of the poem. The emotions are there in the way the senses gather things into the poem.”

Way Mind Body Emotion Expression Aspect Instruments Senses Helpful Poetry Is Formal Musicality

Author:Alison Hawthorne Deming

“Poetry is one of the most full ways of discovering what it feels like to be a human being in this particular moment, in this particular set of concerns. It's all about discovery.”

Way Feels Humans Moments Human Beings Particular Discovery Concern Poetry Is Discovering

Author:Alison Hawthorne Deming

“A lot of times students will come up to me and say, "Well, I can't write because I don't know what I think about such-and-such." And I say, "That's why you have to write." You don't wait until you know, because then who cares - it's static.”

Thinking Knows Writing Wells I Can Care Waiting Students Come Up Who Cares Static

Author:Alison Hawthorne Deming

“I'm always doing poems from a place of not-knowing, a place of ignorance in a way.”

Way Knowing Ignorance Not Knowing

Author:Alison Hawthorne Deming

“I had real concerns about the relationship between nature and culture and places I wanted to write about... I thought, well, maybe I should try prose. It was a real struggle to begin because, first of all, there were so many words on the page - it was terrifying... Beginning was awful.”

Should Writing Trying Firsts Wells Real Wanted Culture Struggle Pages Concern Awful Prose

Author:Alison Hawthorne Deming

“I'm really interested in culture because it is such a powerful human force, particularly in America where we think it's all about the individual.”

Thinking Humans America Culture Individual Force Powerful

Author:Alison Hawthorne Deming

“As writers, the world is not about individual expression entirely because we are producing works of literature and getting them out into the world.”

World Literature Individual Expression Individual Expression

Author:Alison Hawthorne Deming

“The reflection of the world is blues, that's where that part of the music is at. Then you got this other kind of music that's tryin' to come around.”

World Kind Music Music Is Reflection

Author:Jimi Hendrix

“I'm interested in thinking about how are we contributing to the culture, what we can write that might help us deepen the culture, make us more reflective, make us more empathetic, make us feel our connectedness in other ways.”

Thinking Way Feels Writing Helping Might Culture Contributing Connectedness Empathetic

Author:Alison Hawthorne Deming

“I'm just really interested in the interface of the individual with the collective. I think that's where the arts live.”

Thinking Art Individual Collectives Interfaces

Author:Alison Hawthorne Deming