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Diane Wakoski Quotes

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About Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski (born April 8, 1937), an acclaimed American poet, is known for her innovative, experimental style that blends elements of traditional verse with contemporary sensibilities. Born in Flint, Michigan, Wakoski grew up in a family deeply rooted in the arts, nurturing her creative instincts from an early age. She earned her Bachelor's degree from Western Michigan University and her Master's from the University of Iowa. Influenced by poets such as T.S. Eliot, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Allen Ginsberg, Wakoski's work is characterized by its rich imagery, complex structure, and exploration of feminist themes. Her poetry often delves into the personal, focusing on family relationships, women's experiences, and the human condition. Wakoski's career spans over five decades, with her first collection, "The Hearing of Athena," published in 1967. Notable works include "Night Markets of Madhubani" (1982), which draws on Eastern spirituality and mythology, and "The Witch's Daughter: New & Selected Poems" (1984). In 1993, she published "The Silver Poniard: New and Selected Poems," which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Wakoski has received numerous awards throughout her career, including three Pushcart Prizes, the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and the Michigan Notable Books Award. Her poetry continues to be widely anthologized and studied in universities across America. Wakoski's enduring legacy as a trailblazing feminist poet solidifies her place among the most important figures in contemporary American literature.

Interpretations of Popular Quotes

"The moon is just a bowl of cream in the sky."

This quote by Diane Wakoski suggests a simple, tranquil, and romantic view of the moon, likening it to a "bowl of cream" - a symbol of purity, softness, and elegance. It's as if she's inviting us to gaze upon the moon with wonder and appreciating its serene beauty in the vast expanse of the sky. This image can evoke feelings of peacefulness, nostalgia, or even longing, depending on one's personal perspective. Overall, it highlights the beauty and tranquility found in nature, inviting us to appreciate its simplicity and majesty.

"Poetry is the place where all things can be true."

This quote by Diane Wakoski suggests that poetry serves as a realm where truth, in its various forms, can coexist harmoniously. In poetry, conflicting emotions, ideas, and experiences find acceptance without judgment. It's a space that transcends the boundaries of reality, allowing for the exploration of multiple perspectives, fantasies, and reflections. Through poetry, authors can create truths that might not be possible in other forms of expression.

"In the center of the world there is an empty space, waiting for you to move into it."

This quote by Diane Wakoski suggests that within the bustling and chaotic nature of life, there exists a tranquil, vacant space waiting to be filled - or discovered - by each individual. It encourages personal growth and self-realization, inviting us to find our unique place in the world, and make it our own.

"We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect."

This quote suggests that writing serves as a means to fully immerse oneself in an experience twice: firsthand, during the lived moment, and secondly, through the process of reflecting on it afterwards. Essentially, it's about capturing and revisiting life's moments not only experientially but also intellectually and emotionally through the written word.

"Language is a net cast out over the chaos of experience to impose order on it."

This quote suggests that language serves as a tool for humans to make sense of their experiences, to give structure, meaning, and coherence to seemingly random or chaotic events in life. By employing words, we create a framework through which we can understand, communicate, and interact with the world around us. In essence, language allows us to transform the raw chaos of experience into a more manageable, comprehensible order.

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

Voice, Always, Been, Lyrically

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

Work, Good Work, Values, Bogus

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

Other, Line, Before, Long Line

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

- Diane Wakoski

Political, Sense, Read, Current Events

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

- Diane Wakoski

Think, Current, Venue, Current Events

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

Will, Other, Read, Current Events

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

Gender, Race, Ethnic, Context

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

- Diane Wakoski

Celebrate, Very, Whitman, Specifically

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

Numbers, Very, Respectable, Claim

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

Political, American, I Think, Apolitical

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

Woman, Other, Been, Identified

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

- Diane Wakoski

Painting, Always, Like, Individuality

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

Political, Fact, Read, Feminists

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

- Diane Wakoski

Goes, Still, Underground, Pressured

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

Think, Audience, Always, Odd

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

I Think, Use, Almost, 100 Years

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

Everybody, I Think, Very, Response

I think one of the things that language poets are very involved with is getting away from conventional ideas of beauty, because those ideas contain a certain attitude toward women, certain attitudes toward sex, certain attitudes toward race, etc.

- Diane Wakoski

Away, I Think, Very, Poets

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

- Diane Wakoski

Art, American, Come, Post

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

- Diane Wakoski

Love, Today, Sometimes, Spoken

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

Think, Other, I Think, Perceive

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

Think, Other, Diane, Terrific

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

Doing, Part, Aspects, Poet

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

Think, I Think, Which, Identify

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

- Diane Wakoski

Wish, Other, Definitely, Distinguish

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