Life & Wisdom Quote by Anne Stevenson

Stevenson’s line is a dare disguised as a courtesy. It rejects the modern bargain in which poems are skimmed for “relatability” and converted into quick emotional takeaway. “Each word bears its weight” is not just craft talk; it’s an ethic. Weight implies consequence: a word is chosen because it can’t be swapped without collapsing the structure. That’s a quiet rebuke to the casual paraphrase culture that treats language as disposable packaging for sentiment.

The second clause sharpens the subtext: “so you have to read my poems quite slowly.” The “have to” is brisk, almost imperious, but it’s also protective. Stevenson is defending the poem’s tempo against the reader’s impatience, insisting that meaning is not a thing you extract but a process you submit to. Slow reading becomes a form of respect, not for the author’s ego, but for the poem’s internal physics. If each word is carrying load, rushing is a kind of sabotage; you don’t sprint across a bridge built to be tested.

Context matters: Stevenson, a poet shaped by both British and American traditions, wrote in a mode that values precision over gush. In an era that increasingly rewards speed, noise, and volume, her insistence on slowness is countercultural. It frames poetry as an experience with friction, where comprehension is earned, and where the reader is not a customer but a co-worker. The line doesn’t apologize for difficulty; it makes attentiveness the price of admission.