David Antin
David Antin
David Antinis an American poet, critic and performance artist...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth1 February 1932
CountryUnited States of America
came means meant telling thinking
Thinking while talking, and thinking by any means I could, which meant thinking by telling stories, came to me at pretty much the same time.
may entertainment language
From this entertainment industry, may the gods of language protect us.
narrative different stories
Stories are different every time you tell them - they allow so many possible narratives.
thinking newton james-watt
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.
growing-up fluency language
When you grow up in a family of languages, you develop a kind of casual fluency, so that languages, though differently colored, all seem transparent to experience.
pieces world entertainment
The Sophists' paradoxical talk pieces and their public debates were entertainment in 5th century Greece. And in that world, Socrates was an entertainer.
thinking giving taste
While I don't script and I don't use other performers, I think my taste for underlying precision gives me something in common with Allan and George Brecht.
distinction unsatisfied
I am quite unsatisfied by the distinctions between the oral and literate.
memories anxiety greek
The ancient Greek oral poets all had this anxiety about the deficiencies of their memories and always began poems by praying to the Muse to help them remember.
choices pay language
You pay your money, you take your choice. I get the audience my language attracts and I lose the ones it repels.
editing jazz-improvisation procedures
There are editing procedures for talks just as there are editing procedures in jazz improvisation.
lying men names
A myth is the name of a terrible lie told by a smelly little brown person to a man in a white suit with a pair of binoculars.
meaningful children singing
Children frequently sing meaningful phrases to themselves over and over again before they learn to make a distinction between singing and saying.
long format prose
I can manage a prose format as long as I keep closer to Laurence Sterne than to Henry James.