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Quote by 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.”

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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“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

“The problem with describing poets as legislators is that at that level of politics - politics as political invention - poets have no special skills and are not apt to.”

Problem Political Levels Special Poet Skills Invention Describing Legislators

Author:Robert Hass

“It's clear that there has to be some play between the vitality of invention in economic life and some regulation of it, and in some ways the great ideological wars of the 20th century that cost so many lives had to do with whether to have managed economies directed by government or economies directed by the free movement of capital, which is only partially subject to government regulation.”

Way War Play Government Economy Clear Economic Subjects Century Movement Cost Invention Regulation 20th Century Vitality Ideological Government Regulation Free Movement

Author:Robert Hass

“Do poets have any insight into what's the right ratio? I doubt it, but I think that they can be awake to what the ends are.”

Thinking Ends Doubt Poet Insight Awake Ratios

Author:Robert Hass

“Where politics is concerned, I think poets have to be pragmatists, philosophical pragmatists.”

Thinking Poet Concerned Philosophical Pragmatists

Author:Robert Hass

“If you ask me if I have this or that principle, tell me what its consequences are, and then I'll tell you whether I have that principle or not.”

Ifs Asks Principles Consequence Ask Me

Author:Robert Hass