When I got to the reading all the work, I was reduced to being an actor in an experimental play that I'd already written. And I didn't want to be an actor.

quote by David Antin
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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.

quote by David Antin
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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.

quote by David Antin
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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.

quote by David Antin
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

I had no idea where these kids at a small private college in the San Fernando Valley were coming from, why they were coming to hear me, or what they needed to know.

quote by David Antin
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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.

quote by David Antin
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

While I've had a great distaste for what's usually called song in modern poetry or for what's usually called music, I really don't think of speech as so far from song.

quote by David Antin
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!