American novelist and poet (1889-1973)
One is least sure of one's self, sometimes, when one is most positive.
CONRAD AIKEN
Notice: Undefined variable: id in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/a/includes/quoter.php on line 35
Scepticisms: Notes on Contemporary Poetry
We were all born of flesh, in a flare of pain. We do not remember the red roots whence we rose, but we know that we rose and walked, that after a while we shall lie down again.
CONRAD AIKEN
The House of Dust
I compelled myself all through to write an exercise in verse, in a different form, every day of the year. I turned out my page every day, of some sort--I mean I didn't give a damn about the meaning, I just wanted to master the form--all the way from free verse, Walt Whitman, to the most elaborate of villanelles and ballad forms. Very good training. I've always told everybody who has ever come to me that I thought that was the first thing to do.
CONRAD AIKEN
interview, The Paris Review, winter-spring 1968
And the shadows of tree-trunks and shadows of leaves interlace with low voices and footsteps and sunlight to divide us forever.
CONRAD AIKEN
Chance Meetings