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Quote by Robert Hass

“It turns out - this is a metaphor out of [Charles] Dickens - that the raw sewage emptied into the Anacostia comes from the Federal Triangle. I have a sewer map, and on it you can see the pipe from which congressional wastes empty into the river that then flows through the black neighborhoods of Washington, D.C. It is very expensive to do anything about the river, but somebody's working on it.”

Quote by Robert Hass

Author

Robert Hass is an American poet known for his concise and profound poetry style. His works explore themes of nature, history, and the human condition, and have won numerous literary awards. more

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“If you're imaginatively responsible to the place you live in, you understand the watershed.”

Ifs Responsible Watersheds Places You Live

Author:Robert Hass

“Once you figure out something about the watershed, you'll find out where the schools are going to hell, and the kids aren't learning, and there is no money. Social issues, class issues, and environmental issues were all connected.”

Kids School Social Class Hell Issues Figures Environmental Connected Social Issues No Money Environmental Issues Watersheds

Author:Robert Hass

“I am talking about poetry. It's like that line from [John] Yeats: I go back to "where all the ladders start/ In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart."”

Heart Lines Talking Bones Shops Ladders Foul Rags Yeats

Author:Robert Hass

“If you're going to get up to Walt Whitman and Robert Frost and Langston Hughes and Sylvia Plath you've got to figure out how you put people in possession of their heritage. To do that you have to talk about how they're being taught, and the imagination of community the people who are running our government have.”

People Ifs Government Running Community Imagination Figures Taught Possession Get Up Heritage Frost Walt Plath

Author:Robert Hass

“There are instances: [Henry David] Thoreau read [John] Wordsworth, [John] Muir read Thoreau, Teddy Roosevelt read Muir, and you got national parks. It took a century for this to happen, for artistic values to percolate down to where honoring the relation of people's imagination to the land, or beauty, or to wild things, was issued in legislation.”

People Happens Values Imagination Land Century Relation Instance Artistic Parks Legislation Teddy National Parks Wild Things Wordsworth David Thoreau

Author:Robert Hass

“I suppose there's something to be said for the sheer reinforcement of our beliefs, but really I think poetry is more useful as disenchantment than enchantment.”

Thinking Said Belief Poetry Is Sheer Enchantment Reinforcement Disenchantment

Author:Robert Hass

“The record of poetry in the 20th century isn't all that great anyway. Most of the poets who weren't fascists were Stalinists.”

Records Century Poet 20th Century Fascists

Author:Robert Hass

“The poem that comes closest to saying what I think is the one in Human Wishes called "Rusia en 1931." This poem is about [Osip] Mandelstam, who was a great poet and an anti-Stalinist, and [Cesar] Vallejo, who was a great poet and a Stalinist.”

Thinking Humans Wish Poet Closest Great Poet

Author:Robert Hass

“[Osip] Mandelstam was killed by Stalinist forces.”

Author:Robert Hass

“[Cesar] Vallejo was at least metaphorically killed by fascist forces, in the sense that he wore himself out raising funds for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War and got sick and died.”

War Force Republican Sick Died Civil War Fund Fascists Spanish Civil War

Author:Robert Hass