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I can manage a prose format as long as I keep closer to Laurence Sterne than to Henry James.

David Antin

Prose

I'm not sure what theory is, unless it's the pursuit of fundamental questions.

I'm aware of my audience in a way, and I do try to engage with them while I'm trying to go about my business of thinking. I believe they help me by providing a focus.

I was very committed to the process of composing, working at poems, putting things together and taking them apart like some kind of experimental filmmaker.

David Antin

Poems

I was trying to find out what it was that everybody else understood without giving up my stubborn and hard-won lack of understanding.

I wanted to be an inventor, whatever I thought that meant then. I guess I was thinking of Edison or maybe James Watt. Or maybe even Newton.

David Antin

Thought

Thinking

I learned enough Hebrew to stagger through a meaningless ceremony that I scarcely remember.

David Antin

Ceremony

I hardly remember how I started to write poetry. It's hard to imagine what I thought poetry could do.

David Antin

Poetry

Thought

I'm standing up thinking. Anybody who wants to listen is welcome. If not, I'm happy to see them go.

David Antin

Thinking

I didn't think about whether I was writing poems. I was thinking. And the more I was thinking, the more there was I didn't understand.

I reserve the right to tell shaggy dog stories or even common jokes as part of what I'm doing. I don't give a damn if half the audience walks out.

David Antin

Jokes

Right

From this entertainment industry, may the gods of language protect us.

For several centuries what has passed for song in literary circles was any text that looked like the lyrics for a commonplace melodic setting.

David Antin

Literary

Song

Disney made a fortune out of inventing the businessman's idea of the imaginary as the contradictory of the businessman's idea of the real.

Children frequently sing meaningful phrases to themselves over and over again before they learn to make a distinction between singing and saying.