A Quote by Rita Dove
I've always felt that the poems I've written which have historical context are hopefully not just simply plucking something out of history and saying great, let's write about that. In every case what has happened is that I've become fascinated or haunted by something and couldn't shake it.
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If you write a book set in the past about something that happened east of the Mississippi, it's a 'historical novel.' If you write about something that took place west of the Mississippi, it's a 'Western'- and somehow regarded as a lesser work. I write historical novels about the frontier.
He misses the feeling of creating something out of something. That’s right — something out of something. Because something out of nothing is when you make something up out of thin air, in which case it has no value. Anybody can do that. But something out of something means it was really there the whole time, inside you, and you discover it as part of something new, that’s never happened before.
I suppose I have written novels to find out what I thought about something and poems to find out what I felt about something.
It's very common for people to recommend something to me because they're going on what I've already written, when, what really is the case, is that you want to write about something you haven't written about, in ways that you haven't done before.
I'm always telling my students go to law school or become a doctor, do something, and then write. First of all you should have something to write about, and you only have something to write about if you do something.
I tried once in my life to write a novel. I had written something like 80 pages of it when my laptop got stolen. When I told people this, they acted as if something tragic had happened, but I kind of felt relieved, grateful to the thief who saved me from another year of something that felt more like homework than fun.
It's a big thing to call yourself a poet. All I can say is that I have always written poems. I don't think I'm interested in any discussion about whether I'm a good poet, a bad poet or a great poet. But I am sure, I want to write great poems. I think every poet should want that.
Every time I'm in the studio, I always think of my professor in undergrad. He was like, "There are so many artists in the world. If you're going to be an artist, make sure you have something to say. Don't just be an artist and put out bullshit. Have something to say." I guess that would be my philosophy and something I think about all the time. Every day when I'm in the studio I hear him and I see him. I remember him saying it in class. So that's something that I always want to make sure I have: I'm saying something with the work.
With my friends, it was always essentially true stories. That's how I always felt about doing King-Cat. This is something that really happened, whether it makes me look good or bad, or someone else look good or bad. This is what happened, and it's my job in life to write it down. Nowadays, I'm a lot more conscientious about it. I'm not out to attack somebody in print.
Technique in the minds of many is something rigid, something like a formula that you impose on the material; but in the best stories it is something organic, something that grows out of the material, and this being the case, it is different for every story of any account that has ever been written.
My process for determining which eras I'd write about was to just read history books that gave a really broad overview of Chinese history. And when I came across a historical figure or a historical incident that was especially interesting to me, ideas for characters and stories would surface.
He would write it for the reason he felt that all great literature, fiction and nonfiction, was written: truth comes out, in the end it always comes out. He would write it because he felt he had to.
Everything I've written is based on something that has happened to me or something that I know a great deal about.
Your senses are reeling all the time. Finally you find something to write and the very next day you go out and see something else which totally contradicts what you've written and every conclusion you've come to.
I've always wanted to write about a "haunted" film, something imbued with a malign, potentially fatal attraction, an image which poisons everyone who's unfortunate enough to view it.
Whole great chunks of written history are of little value to the psychohistorian, while other vast areas which have been much neglected by historians - childhood history, content analysis of historical imagery, and so on - suddenly expand from the periphery to the center of the psychohistorian's conceptual world, simply because his or her own new questions require material nowhere to be found in history books.
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