Philip Schultz
Philip Schultz
Philip Schultzis an American poet, and the founder/director of The Writers Studio, a private school for fiction and poetry writing based in New York City. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including The God of Loneliness, Selected and New Poems; Failure, winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry; Living in the Past; and The Holy Worm of Praise. He is also the author of Deep Within the Ravine Viking Penguin, 1984), which was the Lamont Poetry...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
CountryUnited States of America
audacious bellow decided hemingway stories walker
I was 17 when I decided to write stories as big as cathedrals, overflowing with the kind of memorable and audacious characters Walker Percy, Ernest Hemingway and Saul Bellow created.
bigger family immigrant jews russian stories top
I come from a family of Russian immigrant Jews who were all big storytellers, who would get together, and one would try to top the others' stories, and stories would get bigger and bigger. And the lying aspect, the exaggeration, would get large.
along chapters deeper examining focused overall poetry sign word
With my fiction, I focused on chapters and overall conceptions, while in poetry, I crawled along in the trenches of each sentence, examining every word for a sign of a deeper significance.
anxiety art escape great imagination life
My imagination was a great place to escape from all the anxiety and disapproval of my life... I had to live in my head... art was a way of making myself feel better.
best figure finish hard maybe poem takes time work
I write slowly, and I write many, many drafts. I probably have to work as hard as anyone, and maybe harder, to finish a poem. I often write a poem over years, because it takes me a long time to figure out what to say and how best to say it.
delicate diminish disguise great people power precious relationship source
I think one's relationship with one's vulnerability is a very delicate and precious relationship. Most people try to hide, disguise that vulnerability, and in doing that, you, I think, diminish a great source of power.
dyslexia maybe
I think I was 16 when I had the thought of maybe being a writer. And this is complicated, something I only now understand, because when I was young, having dyslexia and not knowing it made reading such an ordeal.
hear processed second teacher time understand
I not only couldn't read but often couldn't hear or understand what was being said to me - by the time I'd processed the beginning of a sentence, the teacher was well on her way through a second or third.
alone certain expectation expects merciless
I never feel more alone than when I'm traveling. Alone and, to some extent, helpless. The world expects a certain level of competence and can be merciless when this expectation is unmet.
convince enjoyable exciting good sentence understand worth
I have to often read the same sentence over and over before I understand it. And I have to convince myself that what I'm reading is so enjoyable and so exciting and so good for me that it's worth the effort.
aloud avoid memorize rehearse trouble ways
I found many ways around my dyslexia, but I still have trouble transforming words into sounds. I have to memorize and rehearse before reading anything aloud to avoid embarrassing myself by mispronouncing words.
eventually excluded felt imagined kids quote
I eventually just imagined being a little boy who was quote unquote 'normal': who could learn like all the kids around me that I felt excluded from. And I imagined myself into one of these and into someone who could read.
anyone worked
I don't think I've worked with anyone where I haven't seen some progress. Now sometimes you can't take someone where they want to go, not all the way, and sometimes you stop, and they do it or don't do it on their own thereafter.
imagination obstinate persistent reservoir
I do think that there is a profound reservoir of creativity and imagination in everyone I've ever met, and sometimes if someone is persistent and perversely obstinate enough to persevere, then they want to be helped. There is a way to help them.