Conrad Aiken
Conrad Aiken
Conrad Potter Aikenwas an American writer, whose work includes poetry, short stories, novels, a play, and an autobiography...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth5 August 1889
CitySavannah, GA
CountryUnited States of America
being-yourself thinking giving
I think it's very useful to be insulated from your surrounds, because it gives you your inviolate privacy, without pressures, so that you can just be yourself.
college thinking giving
I think that what's happening today, with all the young poets rushing from one college to another, lecturing at the drop of a hat and so on, is not too good; I think it might have a bad effect on a great many of the young poets. They - to quote Mark Twain - "swap juices" a little too much, so that they are in danger of losing their own identity and don't give themselves time enough in which to work out what's really of importance to them - they're too busy.
children writing thinking
Schoolchildren all over America are told to write to authors-often to authors whom they have never before heard of, whose work they are to young to understand in the least, and often in letters which are almost illiterate. If children are to be taught to respect the work of American poets I think some better way might be found to do so- some way which would not make such an inconsiderate demand on the author's time.
thinking kind poet
I think we've come to a kind of splinter period in poetry. These tiny little bright fragments of observation - and not produced under sufficient pressure - some of it's very skillful, but I don't think there's anywhere a discernible major poet in the process of emerging; or if he is, I ain't seen him.
thinking talent
I think there's an enormous lot of talent around, and somewhere amongst these I'm sure that something will emerge, given time.
thinking years profound
Whitman had a profound influence on me. That was during my sophomore year when I came down with a bad attack of Whitmanitis. But he did me a lot of good, and I think the influence is discoverable.
divide footsteps low shadows voices
And the shadows of tree-trunks and shadows of leavesInterlace with low voices and footsteps and sunlightTo divide us forever.
divide footsteps leaves low shadows sunlight voices
And the shadows of tree-trunks and shadows of leaves Interlace with low voices and footsteps and sunlight To divide us forever.
long alcohol awareness
I've tried it long ago, with hashish and peyote. Fascinating, yes, but no good, no. This, as we find in alcohol, is an escape from awareness, a cheat, a momentary substitution, and in the end a destruction of it.
truth hideous
The truth--a hideous spectacle!
spiritual believe evolution
I do believe in this evolution of consciousness as the only thing which we can embark on, or in fact, willy-nilly, are embarked on; and along with that will go the spiritual discoveries and, I feel, the inexhaustible wonder that one feels, that opens more and more the more you know. It's simply that this increasing knowledge constantly enlarges your kingdom and the capacity for admiring and loving the universe.
life song knives
Life is the thing--the song of life-- The eager plow, the thirsty knife!
god self way
No god save self, that is the way to live ...
death dream
Death is one dream out of another flowing.