Rigoberto Gonzalez Quotes

#1. I figure I write for people who are intelligent enough to do some labor. Lazy readers are not my ideal readers.

Rigoberto Gonzalez

#2. I pay editors. I never ask friends or colleagues to work for free.

Rigoberto Gonzalez

#3. I turned to human suffering because - this may sound odd - animal suffering is more difficult for me to deal with.

Rigoberto Gonzalez

#4. What's a kiss? The sound loneliness makes when it dies.

Rigoberto Gonzalez

#5. Publishers have in-house editors, but I hire my own before I submit the work to publishers. They appreciate it and I feel more confident about the material.

Rigoberto Gonzalez

#6. One of the things I'm constantly telling my students is that they're never going to write a poem everyone gets, or if they do, they've failed. They should leave someone behind every time.

Rigoberto Gonzalez

#7. Revision is a good impulse to have.

Rigoberto Gonzalez

#8. I like to move around in the landscape between poetry and prose, between the lyrical and the narrative.

Rigoberto Gonzalez

#9. Human suffering is articulated in language; communication is how we seek help, consolation, etc.

Rigoberto Gonzalez

#10. Unlike my dead lover, I refuse to/ choose the day I shock the world. There's no/ mystery left in suicide. The challenge is, my love,/ to keep yourself awake/ despite the sleeping pill doses of sickness and/ despair.

Rigoberto Gonzalez

#11. I enjoy working on a number of projects - books - at once.

Rigoberto Gonzalez

#12. I always revise when I publish in a book. So versions in magazines are sometimes slightly different.

Rigoberto Gonzalez

#13. I never try to force poems into a collection simply because they were written/published within a certain period of time. They will eventually find their perfect home.

Rigoberto Gonzalez

#14. I tend to overuse the word "project" only because "book" is terrifying while I'm still in the middle of something. A project can fail. I don't want a book to fail.

Rigoberto Gonzalez