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

if you find that person who makes you feel like everything going forward is worth living, hold on to her. — Karina Halle

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

Did you ever notice how easy it is to forgive a person any number of faults for one endearing characteristic, for a certain style, or some commitment to life - while someone with many good qualities is insupportable for a single defect if it happens to be a boring one? — Shirley Hazzard

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

But whatever you do, find the God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated passion of your life, and find your way to say it and live for it and die for it. And you will make a difference that lasts. You will not waste your life. — John Piper

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

It is never too late to apply good sense as a corrective to stupidity. — David Ignatius

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

There are too many "creative writing" courses and seminars, in which young wirters are constantly being taught to rewrite the previous generation. They should be experimenting on their own. Every writer faces different problems which he must solve for himself. — John Dos Passos