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Quote by 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.”

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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

“When I applied to Stanford, I applied for graduate work in the PhD program, not to the creative writing program, mostly because though I had some vague ambition of becoming a writer and I was trying to write poems and essays and stories, I didn't feel like I was far enough along to submit work to some place and have it judged.”

Feels Writing Trying Enough Stories Creative Becoming Ambition Program Judged Graduates Submit Vague Essays Creative Writing Stanford Phds

Author:Robert Hass

“The professionalization of poetry, or the balkanization, has come out of the fact that when you apply to most creative writing programs, you have to choose your genre.”

Writing Facts Creative Program Genre Creative Writing

Author:Robert Hass

“There's very little solid research on readership, yet people make pronouncements about it all the time.”

People Littles Research Readership

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.”

Way Years Book Seems Used Term Audience Knowing Reader Ten Size Used To Be Relative

Author:Robert Hass

“One thing we do know is that mass literacy is a product of the 19th century, at least in English-speaking cultures - Ireland, England, Scotland, Canada, and the U. S.”

Knows Culture One Thing Century Products Mass England Canada Ireland Scotland Literacy 19th Century English Speaking

Author:Robert Hass

“You only had widespread literacy and books that people could afford in the middle of the 19th century. Did more people read poetry at the turn of the 20th century when there were about fifty million people?”

People Book Turns Millions Middle Century Fifty 20th Century Literacy 19th Century

Author:Robert Hass

“When Emily Dickinson's poems were published in the 1890s, they were a best-seller; the first book of her poems went through eleven editions of a print run of about 400. So the first print run out of Boston for a first book of poems was 400 for a country that had fifty million people in it. Now a first print run for a first book is maybe 2,000? So that's a five-time increase in the expectation of readership. Probably the audience is almost exactly the same size as it was in 1900, if you just took that one example.”

People Ifs Firsts Book Country Running Millions Audience Five Example Expectations Increase Size Fifty Print Boston Eleven Emily Sellers Readership Best Sellers

Author:Robert Hass

“I think one percent of the population attended college when Wallace Stevens and Robert Frost and Gertrude Stein were at Harvard. Now I think forty percent of Americans have some college education. That's an astronomical change.”

Thinking College Percent Population Forty Harvard Frost College Education Gertrude

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.”

People Ifs Men Years Country Three Courses Black Teaching Century Produce Percent Thirds Caught Fifty Grades Forty Black People Three Years 19th Century Signatures Third Grade Penmanship

Author:Robert Hass

Quote by Robert Hass

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