Paul Engle
Paul Engle
Paul Engle, noted American poet, editor, teacher, literary critic, novelist, and playwright. He is perhaps best remembered as the long-time director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and as founder of the International Writing Program, both at the University of Iowa...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth12 October 1908
CountryUnited States of America
absolute class eight took vision workshop
When I took over the Writers' Workshop, it was one little class and there were eight students. All of them, brilliantly untalented... I had an absolute vision after the first workshop meeting.
held poet poetry skin together tough
Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.
hall louisiana scores state town
I have lectured at Town Hall N.Y., The Library of Congress, Harvard, Yale, Amherst, Wellesley, Columbia, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Louisiana State University, Colorado, Stanford, and scores of other places.
began fine high hills lines miles poetry repeating rhythm ride roads sandy until
I began to write poetry in high school, and would ride miles over sandy roads in the fine hills around Cedar Rapids, repeating the lines over and over until I had them right, making some of the rhythm of the horse help.
american-poet ditch finds hills leaves maybe poet
But maybe it's up in the hills under the leaves or in a ditch somewhere. Maybe it's never found. But what you find, whatever you find, is always only part of the missing, and writing is the way the poet finds out what it is he found.
The way to praise a poet is to write a poem.
black body hooks meaning police work
Writing is like this-you dredge for the poem's meaning the way police dredge for a body. They think it is down there under the black water, they work the grappling hooks back and forth.
boys knives terrible
I had been warned about Jews by my gentile friends - they did terrible things with knives to boys.
writing littles wanted
I wanted to write poetry almost a little more than I wanted to eat.
vision bills paid
Without vision you don't see, and without practicality the bills don't get paid.
nuts cake black
All families had their special Christmas food. Ours was called Dutch Bread, made from a dough halfway between bread and cake, stuffed with citron and every sort of nut from the farm - hazel, black walnut, hickory, butternut.
religious school sunday
I knew about holiness, never having missed a Sunday-school class since I started at four years. But if Jews were also religious, how could our neighbor with the grease-grimy shirt use the word 'damn' about them?
horse father firsts
The corncob was the central object of my life. My father was a horse handler, first trotting and pacing horses, then coach horses, then work horses, finally saddle horses. I grew up around, on, and under horses, fed them, shoveled their manure, emptied the mangers of corncobs.
horse writing years
The years rolled their brutal course down the hill of time. Still poor, my clothes still smelling of the horse barn, still writing those doubtful poems where too much emotion clashed with too many words.