Louis Simpson Quotes

Louis Aston Marantz Simpson was an American poet born in Jamaica. He won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his work At the End of the Open Road. Wikipedia

✵ 27. March 1923 – 18. September 2012

Louis Simpson: 6 quotes 0 likes

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Famous Louis Simpson Quotes

“When I was in hospital I found I could hardly read or writ. In these circumstances I began to write poems. I found that poetry was the only kind of writing in which I could express my thoughts. One night I dreamed I was lying on the bank of a canal, under machine gun fire. The next morning I wrote it out, Carentan O Caretan, and as I wrote I realized it was not a dream, but the memory of my first time under fire”

Louis Simpson

The Poetry of War 1939-45 ed. Ian Hamilton, London 1965
Carentan O Carentan, 1948

“All that grave weight of America
Cancelled! Like Greece and Rome.
The future in ruins!”

Louis Simpson

Walt Whitman at Bear Mountain (l. 35-37) (1962)
Poetry quotes

“I did not wish to protest against war. My object was to remember. I wanted people to find in my poems the truth of what it had been like to be an American infantry soldier. Now I see I was writing a memorial of those years, for the me I had known, who were silent.”

Louis Simpson

The Poetry of War ed. Ian Hamilton , London 1945
Other

“Where is the Mississippi panorama
And the girl who played the piano?
Where are you, Walt?
The Open Road goes to the used-car lot.”

Louis Simpson

Walt Whitman at Bear Mountainjim hutchinson quote " I would have not lived my life
Poetry quotes

“For people may not know what they think
about politics in the Balkans,
or the vexed question of men and women,
but everyone has a definite opinion
about the flavour of shredded coconut.”

Louis Simpson

Chocolates (l. 18-22) (1980)
Poetry quotes

“It's complicated, being an American,
Having the money and the bad conscience, both at the same time.
Perhaps, after all, this is not the right subject for a poem.”

Louis Simpson

On the Lawn at the Villa (l. 14-16) (1980) It is not your job to like me, it is mine.
Poetry quotes

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