"A really good stand-up comic is a poet; it's about the use of language"— Sherman Alexie, as interviewed in the Iowa Review
This quote explains why I'm a big fan of both Alexie and Shakespeare: neither poet is afraid to make you laugh. (Here's a professor who apparently agrees with me.)
Furthermore, in a satisfyingly serendipitous moment, I just googled "Alexie" and "Shakespeare," to see if anyone else had mentioned the two online in the same breath--- and found out that Sherman Alexie is accepting his 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award at the Folger Shakespeare Library here in D.C. on May 8th.
P.S. If you want more quotes from Alexie, I also saw this at his website:
"A new book, Conversations with Sherman Alexie, edited by Nancy Peterson, includes interviews - ranging from 1993 to 2007- that feature Alexie speaking candidly about the ideas and themes behind poetry collections, short story collections, novels, and screenplays."
This post is part of a month-long celebration of not-quite-daily quotes about poets, poems, and poetry. For more quotes, see the archive of the Poetry Quote of the Day. There are many more National Poetry Month celebrations across the Kidlitosphere.
Ooh. Is his award acceptance open to the public?
ReplyDeleteHey, the quote-a-day thing is a cool idea. Here's my fav Alexie poem quote: "When the blades fell upon me
ReplyDeleteI was closer to being Indian than I had ever been before." - Spoken by Sam the Indian, the only white guy on the reservation. You can find the whole poem here http://www.ravenchronicles.org/raven/rvback/issues/0397/Alexie.htm
Thank you for the link to the poem. As with most everything Alexie writes, I couldn't turn away.
ReplyDelete