Anne Stevenson
Anne Stevenson
Anne Stevensonis an American-British poet and writer...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth3 January 1933
CountryUnited States of America
real mean simple
I play with language a great deal in my poems, and I enjoy that. I try to condense language, that is, I try to express complicated but I hope real emotions as simply as possible. But that doesn't mean the poems are simple, just that they are as truthful as I can make them.
believe order useless
I have always made my own rules, in poetry as in life - though I have tried of late to cooperate more with my family. I do, however, believe that without order or pattern poetry is useless.
fun
When everything is for 'fun' nothing is for the good.
silence mind desire
Mind led body to the edge of the precipice. They stared in desire at the naked abyss. If you love me, said mind, take that step into silence. If you love me, said body, turn and exist.
married britain cambridge
I married a young Englishman in Cambridge in 1955 and have lived in Britain every since.
summer dream rain
You sleep with a dream of summer weather, wake to the thrum of rain—roped down by rain. Nothing out there but drop-heavy feathers of grass and rainy air. The plastic table on the terrace has shed three legs on its way to the garden fence. The mountains have had the sense to disappear. It's the Celtic temperament—wind, then torrents, then remorse. Glory rising like a curtain over distant water. Old stonehouse, having steered us through the dark, docks in a pool of shadow all its own. That widening crack in the gloom is like good luck. Luck, which neither you nor tomorrow can depend on.
eye intuition judgment
There comes a time when you have to trust your own judgment, when you must close your eyes and let your instinct rule you.
suicide sorry half
Sylvia Plath was just a month and a half older than I, and when she committed suicide I was only 30 - and very shocked and sorry. I never knew her personally.
bird blackbirds farms
Blackbirds are the cellos of the deep farms.
soul ifs my-soul
My soul, how will I recognize you if we meet?
art science criticism
I dislike literary jargon and never use it. Criticism has only one function and that is to help readers read and understand literature. It is not a science, it is an aid to art.
marriage book years
I did know Ted Hughes and I partly wrote the book to explain to myself and others the complexities of a marriage that was for six years wonderfully productive of poetry and then ended in tragedy.
friends art shy
I'm not really quiet or shy. Ask any of my friends! But I always ground my poetry in life itself. Poetry is an art of language, though, so I am always aware of every word's meaning, or multiple meanings.
book frost yeats
Blake has always been a favorite, the lyrics, not so much the prophetic books, but I suppose Yeats influenced me more as a young poet, and the American, Robert Frost.