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Quote by Alison Hawthorne Deming

“There are landscapes and species that are not going to be here a hundred years from now, fifty years from now. One gift we as writers give to the world is to bear witness to these landscapes and species as we have experienced them.”

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

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“The world is going to be less biologically rich for quite some time in the future. We are always weeping that we live in such a diminished world, but we are experiencing a biologically rich world compared to what the future will look like. Bearing witness to that is a beautiful gift.”

World Looks Beautiful Rich Witness Weeping Bearing Witness

Author:Alison Hawthorne Deming

“If you have this deep feeling of empathy for the natural world, you feel it so profoundly. It's almost a religious experience. I feel that I could never really say the depth of feeling or connection I feel to the natural world, which has made me.”

Ifs World Feels Made Feelings Natural Religious Empathy Connections Depth Natural World Religious Experience Deep Feeling

Author:Alison Hawthorne Deming

“I am a result of what has happened on this planet - how could I find the art to say that? I can't, and yet, I am drawn to it because of the enormity of it. That seems really important.”

Art I Can Important Seems Results Happened Planets

Author:Alison Hawthorne Deming

“There is a difference between our wisdom and nature's simplicity. That reflects the burden of a complex intelligence. A complex intelligence like ours is impotent compared to the intelligence of a monarch butterfly migrating from Canada to Mexico, or the intelligence of hummingbirds that have co-evolved with the flowers all along their migration route. That seems so simple; it just happens, it just unfolds.”

Seems Happens Differences Simple Flower Complexes Simplicity Burden Canada Mexico Butterfly Routes Migration Monarchs Hummingbirds Monarch Butterfly

Author:Alison Hawthorne Deming

“You see this incredible capacity for replication in nature, survival, development, all of these things that are around us all the time in nature that just happen. By comparison, human life is really, really complicated. We're gifted animals, but we are so complicated. Nothing is easy for us, except maybe eating too much.”

Humans Happens Life Is Easy Animal Too Much Development Eating Survival Capacity Incredibles Complicated Human Life Comparison Gifted Replication Nothing Is Easy

Author:Alison Hawthorne Deming

“Life seems complicated to me; I feel confused a lot of the time by life. I feel confused about the fact that we can be so tender as creatures to one another, and so monstrous at the same time.”

Feels Facts Seems Creatures Complicated Confused Monstrous

Author:Alison Hawthorne Deming

“I think I started writing as a young person because I felt a lot of psychic confusion and emotional confusion, and writing was a way to sort it out. You know, to externalize it, sort it out, put it down, look at it, and hopefully it would become clearer.”

Way Writing Looks Persons Young Felt Emotional Confusion Hopefully Psychics

Author:Alison Hawthorne Deming

“My goal is to be one with the music. I just dedicate my whole life to this art.”

Art Whole Goal Music Whole Life

Author:Jimi Hendrix

“I think you have to live inside your contradictions and find a way to accept that that's the human condition - to be forced to live in contradiction.”

Thinking Way Humans Accepting Conditions Contradiction Human Condition

Author:Alison Hawthorne Deming

“I'm always writing towards a discovery. When I'm writing poems in particular, I'm often writing because a few images coalesced in my mind and I thought, "I wonder why these images are abrading against each other. I wonder what happens if put them in a poem and explore them." I'm trying to learn something every time I write a poem.”

Ifs Writing Trying Mind Happens Wonder Particular Discovery Writing Poems

Author:Alison Hawthorne Deming