“I was in Paris at an English-language bookstore. I picked up a volume of Dickinson's poetry. I came back to my hotel, read 2, 000 of her poems and immediately began composing in my head. I wrote down the melodies even before I got to a piano.”
Tip: press → for another quote, C to copy, S to share.
When my opera Plump Jack was performed in 1989, my first piano teacher sent me something that I'd composed when I was four. I remember I played it, and it still sounded like me. I'm the same composer I was then.
I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry that is, prose = words in their best order - poetry = the best words in the best order.
I don't live for poetry. I live far more than anybody else does.
I love painting and music, of course. I don't know nearly as much about them as I know about poetry. I've certainly been influenced by fiction. I was overwhelmed by War and Peace when I read it, and I didn't read it until I was in my late 20s.
