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Quote by Robert Hass

“Poetry had in the hands of various people become a place for inconvenient knowledge insofar as it was a place for knowledge at all. But it was a place where you could talk about other kinds of experience than the official version.”

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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“Our history doesn't look at our own violence, the violence in our own past, and we go out and repeat it someplace else.”

Looks Past Violence Repeats

Author:Robert Hass

“We don't know our own story.”

Author:Robert Hass

“Pound described poetry as original research in language, and just as formal experiment in poetry has to try things and has to go too far, so does experiment with writing about politics in poetry and what the politics of poetry is.”

Writing Trying Doe Language Research Originals Experiments Pounds Poetry Is Formal

Author:Robert Hass

“I think that my responsibility to my art is to try to get it right or to push the boundaries of what I'm able to do in any way.”

Thinking Way Trying Art Able Responsibility Art Is Boundaries

Author:Robert Hass

“I think that were I in the middle of an obsession to write about, say, sudden oak death in California or my grandchildren or time and memory and how they look when you get to be in your sixties, and I thought, "Well, yes but people are dying every day in Baghdad," I wouldn't feel guilty about not writing about Baghdad if I didn't have any good ideas about how to write about it.”

People Ifs Thinking Feels Writing Wells Looks Ideas Memories Middle Dying Obsession Guilty California Good Ideas Sixty Grandchildren Oaks Baghdad My Grandchildren

Author:Robert Hass

“Sometimes you have to be less ashamed about writing a bad poem than you would be about being silent.”

Writing Sometimes Would Be Silent Ashamed

Author:Robert Hass

“Another problem about writing about politics in the "age of globalization" is that so much of the violence in the form of war and also in the forms of institutional violence - sweatshops, child labor, victimization of people economically - happens elsewhere and out of sight. And when we do know about it and need to witness it, it's always mediated by images of one kind or another, so you're kind of stuck trying to write about what it's like trying to be you living your life thinking about and experiencing this stuff in that way.”

“One way to escape the universe in which everything is a kind of media cartoon is to write about the part of your life that doesn't feel like a cartoon, and how the cartoon comes into it.”

Way Feels Writing Kind Universe Media One Way Cartoon

Author:Robert Hass

“I think that what art can do is refresh our sense of justice, wake us up to what we've taken for granted in the political realm, as in the other realms.”

Thinking Art Political Can Do Justice Taken Granted Realms Taken For Granted

Author:Robert Hass

“Haiku is an art that seems dedicated to making people pay attention to the preciousness and particularity of every moment of existence. I think that poetry can do that.”

People Thinking Art Moments Seems Can Do Pay Existence Attention Pay Attention Dedicated Haiku

Author:Robert Hass