Karl Shapiro: Likeness

Karl Shapiro was Poet, essayist. Explore interesting quotes on likeness.
Karl Shapiro: 30   quotes 0   likes

“I saw in it a thing
That scorned the grossness of the thing I wrote.
It hung upon my finger like a sting.”

Karl Shapiro

"Interludes" III, in From Darkness To Light : A Confession of Faith in the form of an Anthology (1956) edited by Victor Gollancz
Context: Writing, I crushed an insect with my nail
And thought nothing at all. A bit of wing
Caught my eye then, a gossamer so frail And exquisite, I saw in it a thing
That scorned the grossness of the thing I wrote.
It hung upon my finger like a sting.

“Words like “spokesman” and “touchstone” took me completely by surprise.”

Karl Shapiro

Paris Review interview (1986)
Context: Words like “spokesman” and “touchstone” took me completely by surprise. For very real reasons. Not only had I been out of the country when my first two books were published, but I have always been “out of the country” in the sense that I never had what ordinarily is thought of as a literary life, or been part of a literary group. What psychiatrists nowadays call a support system. I never had any of that and still don’t.

“A leg I noticed next, fine as a mote,
"And on this frail eyelash he walked," I said,
"And climbed and walked like any mountain-goat."”

Karl Shapiro

"Interludes" III, in From Darkness To Light : A Confession of Faith in the form of an Anthology (1956) edited by Victor Gollancz

Mountain

“I was at Notre Dame just a few years ago, and one of the professors there said to me, “You don’t know what effect In Defense of Ignorance had. It ripped the whole academic community in half!” I’m glad I wrote the book. I like it, and I still stand by my observations, although I wouldn’t write it so violently now. I guess I really am in the Whitman tradition.”

Karl Shapiro

Paris Review interview (1986)

Books , Communication