I believe that poems are a score for performance by the reader, and that you become the speaking voice. You don't read or overhear the voice in the poem - you are the voice in the poem.
Tags: i-believe, performance, voice, believe, you

Other Quotes by "Helen Vendler"

The art of utterance persuades initially by its music and its rhythm, before semiotic or personal characteristics come into play.
Tags: personal, play, music, art
I always write after I think for quite a long time, so the actual writing time is rather short. I think a lot of the work gets done when you have something on your mind while you're doing many other things.
Tags: long, time, you, work
I like art history and art criticism. Leo Steinberg has always been my favorite. He's very original, very accurate and acute.
Tags: like, always, history, art
I liked teaching Henry James. When you look down at a Henry James novel from a helicopter height, you find an intricate spider web that all clings together.
Tags: down, together, look, you
I was unnerved to learn in my twenties that the poems of Emily Dickinson that I had memorized as a girl were not the poems as she had written them.
Tags: them, learn, she, girl
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