Anne Stevenson

“My earlier poems were sadder than my poems are today, perhaps because I wrote them in confusion or when I was unhappy. But I am not a melancholy person, quite the contrary, no one enjoys laughing more than I do.”

“I married a young Englishman in Cambridge in 1955 and have lived in Britain every since.”

“Writing in a strict form can surprise you.”

“I don't like poetry that just slaps violent words on a canvas, as it were.”

“I am now seventy, rather glad, really, that I won't live to see the horrors to come in the 21st century.”

“I write, or used to write, to explain to myself situations I couldn't otherwise solve or understand. Meditation comes very naturally to me.”

“Poets should ignore most criticism and get on with making poetry.”

“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.”

“Yes, I do often write poems from the mind, but I hope I don't ignore feelings and emotions.”

“Have you ever heard of a pianist who never had to practice - or of an architect who didn't bother to find out why buildings stand up?”

“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.”

“Looking back at it now, any objective account of my life is bound to read like a cross between 'The Wife of Bath's Tale' and a travel brochure.”

“I've cancelled all my subscriptions to poetry magazines. I prefer to read the 'New Scientist.'”

“I never wanted to be a pop star.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I truly hate marketing promotions, and I don't at all approve of encouraging wannabe poets to write bad poetry.”

“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.”

“I think a poet, like a painter, should be a craftsperson.”

“Many varieties of sonnet, of course, have been written over the ages.”