The professionalization of poetry, or the balkanization, has come out of the fact that when you apply to most creative writing programs, you have to choose your genre.
Robert HassLiterature, the study of literature in English in the 19th century, did not belong to literary studies, which had to do with Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, but instead with elocution and public speaking. So when people read literature, it was to memorize and to recite it.
Robert HassMy suspicion is that once you have literacy in place, the readership has not changed very much.
Robert HassReading is a gymnasium for the imagination where people can work out, get ready for the shocks of existence. [...] For me, the intimate teachers have not only taught me how to make things, they have represented some qualities of mind and mindfulness that I would like to have.
Robert HassIt's clear that there has to be some play between the vitality of invention in economic life and some regulation of it, and in some ways the great ideological wars of the 20th century that cost so many lives had to do with whether to have managed economies directed by government or economies directed by the free movement of capital, which is only partially subject to government regulation.
Robert Hass