Lorine Niedecker Quotes & Sayings

Can knowledge be conveyed that isn't felt?
But if transport's the problem -
they tell me get a job and earn yourself
an automobile-I'd rather collect my parts
as I go: chair, desk, house
and crankshaft Shakespeare.
Generator boy, Paul, love is carried
if it's held. — Lorine Niedecker

Grandfather / advised me: / Learn a trade / I learned / to sit at desk / and condense / No layoff / from this / condensery. — Lorine Niedecker

I rose from marsh mud
algae, equisetum, willows,
sweet green, noisy
birds and frogs. — Lorine Niedecker

What horror to awake at night
and in the dimness see the light.
Time is white
mosquitoes bite
I've spent my life on nothing.
The thought that stings. How are you, Nothing,
sitting around with Something's wife.
Buzz and burn
is all I learn
I've spent my life on nothing.
I'm pillowed and padded, pale and puffing
lifting household stuffing
carpets, dishes
benches, fishes
I've spent my life in nothing. — Lorine Niedecker

What would they say if they knew
I sit for two months
on six lines of poetry? — Lorine Niedecker

Smile / to see the lake / lay / the still sky / And / out for an easy / make / the dragonfly. — Lorine Niedecker

Popcorn-can cover / screwed to the wall / over a hole / so the cold / can't mouse in. — Lorine Niedecker

Poet's Work
Grandfather
advised me:
Learn a trade
I learned
to sit at desk
and condense
No layoffs
from this
condensery — Lorine Niedecker

I was the solitary plover
a pencil
for a wing-bone
From the secret notes
I must tilt
upon the pressure
execute and adjust
In us sea-air rhythm
We live by the urgent wave
of the verse — Lorine Niedecker

Strange - we are always inhabiting more than one realm of existence - but they all fit in if the art is right. — Lorine Niedecker