Top 30 Diane Wakoski Quotes (2024 Update)

Diane Wakoski Quote: “I think I’m a very good reader of poetry, but obviously, like everybody, I have a set of criteria for reading poems, and I’m not shy about presenting them, so if people ask for my critical response to a poem, I tell them what works and why, and what doesn’t work and why.”

1. “I think I’m a very good reader of poetry, but obviously, like everybody, I have a set of criteria for reading poems, and I’m not shy about presenting them, so if people ask for my critical response to a poem, I tell them what works and why, and what doesn’t work and why.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “Poems come from incomplete knowledge.”

2. “Poems come from incomplete knowledge.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “There are rituals not structures for being a poet, drinking too much, taking too many drugs, being a lady chaser, having your nervous breakdown, being irresponsible about money.”

3. “There are rituals not structures for being a poet, drinking too much, taking too many drugs, being a lady chaser, having your nervous breakdown, being irresponsible about money.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “Sometimes the archaism of the language when it’s spoken is why we are all in love with the Irish today.”

4. “Sometimes the archaism of the language when it’s spoken is why we are all in love with the Irish today.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “I think that great poetry is the most interesting and complex use of the poet’s language at that point in history, and so it’s even more exciting when you read a poet like Yeats, almost 100 years old now, and you think that perhaps no one can really top that.”

5. “I think that great poetry is the most interesting and complex use of the poet’s language at that point in history, and so it’s even more exciting when you read a poet like Yeats, almost 100 years old now, and you think that perhaps no one can really top that.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “I write in the first person because I have always wanted to make my life more interesting than it was.”

6. “I write in the first person because I have always wanted to make my life more interesting than it was.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “I had been dreaming a complicated dream about helping poets revise their poems, so that each ending would open like a flower. I was not arguing, but engaged in a rousing discussion.”

7. “I had been dreaming a complicated dream about helping poets revise their poems, so that each ending would open like a flower. I was not arguing, but engaged in a rousing discussion.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “Because, in fact, women, feminists, do read my poetry, and they read it often with the power of their political interpretation. I don’t care; that’s what poetry is supposed to do.”

8. “Because, in fact, women, feminists, do read my poetry, and they read it often with the power of their political interpretation. I don’t care; that’s what poetry is supposed to do.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “Poems reveal secrets when they are analyzed. The poet’s pleasure in finding ingenious ways to enclose her secrets should be matched by the reader’s pleasure in unlocking and revealing these secrets.”

9. “Poems reveal secrets when they are analyzed. The poet’s pleasure in finding ingenious ways to enclose her secrets should be matched by the reader’s pleasure in unlocking and revealing these secrets.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “But I am not political in the current events sense, and I have never wanted anyone to read my poetry that way.”

10. “But I am not political in the current events sense, and I have never wanted anyone to read my poetry that way.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “I have always wanted what I have now come to call the voice of personal narrative. That has always been the appealing voice in poetry. It started for me lyrically in Shakespeare’s sonnets.”

11. “I have always wanted what I have now come to call the voice of personal narrative. That has always been the appealing voice in poetry. It started for me lyrically in Shakespeare’s sonnets.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “But I don’t think that poetry is a good, to use a contemporary word, venue, for current events.”

12. “But I don’t think that poetry is a good, to use a contemporary word, venue, for current events.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “High and low culture come together in all Post Modern art, and American poetry is not excluded from this.”

13. “High and low culture come together in all Post Modern art, and American poetry is not excluded from this.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “I do not read newspapers. I do not watch television. I am not interested in current events, although I will occasionally discuss them if other people want to discuss them.”

14. “I do not read newspapers. I do not watch television. I am not interested in current events, although I will occasionally discuss them if other people want to discuss them.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “Poetry is the art of saying what you mean but disguising it.”

15. “Poetry is the art of saying what you mean but disguising it.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “The best young writers are convinced they need blurbs from famous writers before an editor will even read the first page of a manuscript. If this is true, then the editorial system that prevails today stinks. And let’s start reforming it.”

16. “The best young writers are convinced they need blurbs from famous writers before an editor will even read the first page of a manuscript. If this is true, then the editorial system that prevails today stinks. And let’s start reforming it.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “Still, language is resilient, and poetry when it is pressured simply goes underground.”

17. “Still, language is resilient, and poetry when it is pressured simply goes underground.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “I definitely wish to distinguish American poetry from British or other English language poetry.”

18. “I definitely wish to distinguish American poetry from British or other English language poetry.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “One, I have a wonderful publisher, Black Sparrow Press; as long as they exist, they will keep me in print. And they claim they sell very respectable numbers of my books, so I guess, and it’s true, every place I go, my books are in libraries and on bookshelves.”

19. “One, I have a wonderful publisher, Black Sparrow Press; as long as they exist, they will keep me in print. And they claim they sell very respectable numbers of my books, so I guess, and it’s true, every place I go, my books are in libraries and on bookshelves.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “I’m passing on a tradition of which I am part. There’s a long line of poets who went before me, and I’m another one, and I’m hoping to pass that on to other younger, or newer, poets than myself.”

20. “I’m passing on a tradition of which I am part. There’s a long line of poets who went before me, and I’m another one, and I’m hoping to pass that on to other younger, or newer, poets than myself.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “Learning to live what you’re born with is the process, the involvement, the making of a life.”

21. “Learning to live what you’re born with is the process, the involvement, the making of a life.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “Other people have noticed more of an evolution than I have and so I’ll try to tell you where I’m coming from and also relate it to what I think other people perceive.”

22. “Other people have noticed more of an evolution than I have and so I’ll try to tell you where I’m coming from and also relate it to what I think other people perceive.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “American poets celebrate their bodies, very specifically, as Whitman did.”

23. “American poets celebrate their bodies, very specifically, as Whitman did.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “PC stuff just lowers the general acceptance of good work and replaces it with bogus poetry that celebrates values that in themselves are probably quite worthy.”

24. “PC stuff just lowers the general acceptance of good work and replaces it with bogus poetry that celebrates values that in themselves are probably quite worthy.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “From reading a previous answer, you know that I consider all those aspects to be part of American cultural myth and thus they figure into good American poetry, whether the poet is aware of what he is doing or not.”

25. “From reading a previous answer, you know that I consider all those aspects to be part of American cultural myth and thus they figure into good American poetry, whether the poet is aware of what he is doing or not.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “So, I’ve never been politically correct, even before that term was available to us, and I have really identified with other people who don’t want to be read as just a black poet, or just a woman poet, or just someone who represents a cause, an anti-Vietnam war poet.”

26. “So, I’ve never been politically correct, even before that term was available to us, and I have really identified with other people who don’t want to be read as just a black poet, or just a woman poet, or just someone who represents a cause, an anti-Vietnam war poet.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “My poems are almost all written as Diane. I don’t have any problems with that, and if other women choose to identify with this, I think that’s terrific.”

27. “My poems are almost all written as Diane. I don’t have any problems with that, and if other women choose to identify with this, I think that’s terrific.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “I think that’s what poetry does. It allows people to come together and identify with a common thing that is outside of themselves, but which they identify with from the interior.”

28. “I think that’s what poetry does. It allows people to come together and identify with a common thing that is outside of themselves, but which they identify with from the interior.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “American poetry, like American painting, is always personal with an emphasis on the individuality of the poet.”

29. “American poetry, like American painting, is always personal with an emphasis on the individuality of the poet.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “I don’t like political poetry, and I don’t write it. If this question was pointing towards that, I think it is missing the point of the American tradition, which is always apolitical, even when the poetry comes out of politically active writers.”

30. “I don’t like political poetry, and I don’t write it. If this question was pointing towards that, I think it is missing the point of the American tradition, which is always apolitical, even when the poetry comes out of politically active writers.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “I’m perfectly happy when I look out at an audience and it’s all women. I always think it’s kind of odd, but then, more women than men, I think, read and write poetry.”

31. “I’m perfectly happy when I look out at an audience and it’s all women. I always think it’s kind of odd, but then, more women than men, I think, read and write poetry.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “Distinctly American poetry is usually written in the context of one’s geographic landscape, sometimes out of one’s cultural myths, and often with reference to gender and race or ethnic origins.”

32. “Distinctly American poetry is usually written in the context of one’s geographic landscape, sometimes out of one’s cultural myths, and often with reference to gender and race or ethnic origins.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “We are authors, all of us, concerned with beginning, with making, with sources and substance.”

33. “We are authors, all of us, concerned with beginning, with making, with sources and substance.”

— Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski Quote: “I am not political as a person.”

34. “I am not political as a person.”

— Diane Wakoski

Motivational Quotes

Motivational Quotes

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

Positive Quotes

Positive Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

Motivational Quotes

Motivational Quotes

INSPIRATIONAL SUCCESS MOTIVATIONAL

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

ENTREPRENEURSHIP BUSINESS INSPIRATIONAL

Positive Quotes

Positive Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

ENTREPRENEURSHIP BUSINESS INSPIRATIONAL

Steve Jobs Quotes

Steve Jobs Quotes

ENTREPRENEURSHIP BUSINESS APPLE

Inspirational Quotes

Inspirational Quotes

COURAGE MOTIVATIONAL STRENGTH

Swami Vivekananda Quotes

Swami Vivekananda Quotes

LIFE SPIRITUALITY

INSPIRATIONAL SUCCESS MOTIVATIONAL

Save image...
Permalink
Open in new tab
Copy quote text

Beautiful Wallpapers and Images

We hope you enjoyed our collection of 30 free pictures with Diane Wakoski Quotes.

All of the images on this page were created with QuoteFancy Studio.

Use QuoteFancy Studio to create high-quality images for your desktop backgrounds, blog posts, presentations, social media, videos, posters and more.

Thank you!

Please check your email.