Paul Engle
Paul Engle
Paul Engle, noted American poet, editor, teacher, literary critic, novelist, and playwright. He is perhaps best remembered as the long-time director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and as founder of the International Writing Program, both at the University of Iowa...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth12 October 1908
CountryUnited States of America
writing college missing
But maybe it's up the hills or under the leaves or in a ditch somewhere. Maybe it's never found. But what you find, whatever you find, is only part of the missing, and writing is the way the poet finds out what it is he found.
grief delight pages
Verse is not written, it is bled; Out of the poet's abstract head. Words drip the poem on the page; Out of his grief, delight and rage.
precious-stones july envy
Touch was important. The evening of the Third of July we would go around the neighborhood and look at the fireworks others had bought, taking them out of the brown paper sack and handling them cautiously as if they were precious stones. There was envy when we saw sacks with more in them than we had.
new-york writing iowa
There must be an alternative between Hollywood and New York, between those two places psychically as well as geographically. The University of Iowa tries to offer such a community, congenial to the young writer, with his uneasiness about writing as an honorable career, or with his excess of ego about calling himself a writer.
war kids july
Soldiers of the American Revolution fought that 18th century war with heavy muskets. In the early 20th century, we kids fought it every Fourth of July not only with exploding powder and shimmering flares, but with all of our senses.
workout boys july
Our small ears never had such a workout as on the Fourth of July, hearing not only our own bursting crackers but also those of our friends, and often the boom of homemade cannon shot off by daring boys of 16 years, ready to lose a hand if it blew up.
horse house automobile
Other families bought automobiles; we had a horse-headed hitching post in front of our house and drove horses.
ideas reading-poetry skins
Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.
began fine high hills lines miles poetry repeating rhythm ride roads sandy until
I began to write poetry in high school, and would ride miles over sandy roads in the fine hills around Cedar Rapids, repeating the lines over and over until I had them right, making some of the rhythm of the horse help.
american-poet ditch finds hills leaves maybe poet
But maybe it's up in the hills under the leaves or in a ditch somewhere. Maybe it's never found. But what you find, whatever you find, is always only part of the missing, and writing is the way the poet finds out what it is he found.
The way to praise a poet is to write a poem.
religious school sunday
I knew about holiness, never having missed a Sunday-school class since I started at four years. But if Jews were also religious, how could our neighbor with the grease-grimy shirt use the word 'damn' about them?
black body hooks meaning police work
Writing is like this-you dredge for the poem's meaning the way police dredge for a body. They think it is down there under the black water, they work the grappling hooks back and forth.