The events in America now have the quality of things you would find out about long after the … - Dan Chiasson

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in the place I am from. . . a grave is topped off with a huge mound of loose earth - carelessly, as if piled up in child's play, not serious at all - because death is just another way of being, and the dead will not stay put, and sometimes the actions of the dead are more significant, more profound, than their actions in life, and no structure of concrete or stone can contain them.

Dan Chiasson

The events in America now have the quality of things you would find out about long after the fact, and think: if only we had known. Well, we do know now. But what are we doing? Maybe a poet like Lowell brought America a little nearer to its boiling point.

Brought, Fact, Long, Lowell, Quality, Thinking

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If you are made for flight, intended for it, you had better find a pursuer, fast. Otherwise, all that fleeing is going nowhere.

Fleeing, Flight, Made, Fast, Pursuer

I write to get myself writing. That and read Wallace Stevens' "An Ordinary Evening in New Haven" for the umpteenth time. Certain authors for me, certain books, just by reading a phrase I feel I can write.

Book, Haven, Reading, Stevens, Write, Writing

The issue is that when you're a critic it's hard to tell the difference between the thrill of denouncing and telling the truth. Telling the truth to me feels more often like denouncing than like praising. There are many more concrete advantages in the world for people who praise than for those who denounce. So if you want to tell the truth, oftentimes you're going to err on the side of denouncing. That's just something I have to work on.

People, World, Telling The Truth, Concrete, Denouncing, Like

I do care about the consequences of being negative toward people who are powerful. But I'm more afraid of not being taken seriously as a critic - by editors, by readers.

Critic, Editors, People, Powerful, Taken

The main thing in poetry criticism is that I have all these opinions, and I love having something to do with them. And I think it's important that people try not to be false. The ideal would be that everybody says everything in print. I don't know that it's that I'm not afraid.

Criticism, False, Love, People, Says, Thinking