21 Quotes by Cate Marvin

We lay our words like tenuous plats, build a bridge over itsunsinkable depth: Not a sea of longing,but the brack of wanting what’s physicalto help us forget we are physical.

I love teaching poetry writing. Students come into the class thinking poetry has to be one way, then leave having created pieces that are wholly original, that have – quite literally – never been made before.

Confessional poetry is, to my mind, more slippery than poems that are sloppily autobiographical; I find the confessional mode much more akin to dramatic monologue.

Some poems take two to three years to finish. Rarely, a poem will arrive whole. It’s nice when that happens. However, process has become so grueling for me over the past few years that when one of my students uses the word “inspiration” I practically shriek with laughter.

One cannot have “success” in poetry. If I wanted to be successful, I’d have become a lawyer.

My day does not truly begin until I’ve acquired and consumed a 32-ounce Big Gulp of diet coke from 7-Eleven. It’s the Big Gulp that’s important, not 7-Eleven, where I find the employees rather disagreeable.

I encourage my students to be honest in their assessment of both the published work we read and the work of their classmates. I think there’s always the occasion for discussing elements of craft, whether the student’s poem is terrible or quite wonderful.

I place a lot of emphasis on process and revision because I believe that all of my students can become better writers through hard work.

To think of writing poetry as a “career” is not only ridiculous, it’s dangerous. To the imagination. To the way one thinks of art. The reason poetry as a genre is so special is because it cannot be made a commodity.