Marilyn Hacker
Marilyn Hacker is an American poet, translator, literary critic, editor, and journalist born in New York City on November 27, 1942.
Hacker attended the Bronx High School of Science before going on to study at New York University. Those early years in New York shaped the foundation of a career that would span poetry, translation, criticism, and editorial work, all conducted in English.
Among the honors she has received are a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Book Award for Poetry, and the Lambda Literary Award. She has also been recognized for her work as a translator, earning the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation — a distinction that reflects how central translation has been alongside her original writing. Her editorial work is represented by her authorship of the publications Quark/1, Quark/2, Quark/3, and Quark/4, collected under the Quark/ series.
Poetry and translation are the two threads that run most consistently through Hacker's body of work, with her practice as a literary critic and editor adding further range to her output as a writer.
Quotes by Marilyn Hacker
Marilyn Hacker's insights on:
'Love, Death and the Changing of the Seasons' is a kind of novel in verse about the arc of an urban lesbian love affair - and I suppose there is a certain amount of voyeurism in the consumption of fiction! The 'Sancerre' poems here are more contemplative and about the relationship of the individual to local and wider histories.
I wonder what it means about American literary culture and its transmission when I consider the number of American poets who earn their living teaching creative writing in universities. I’ve ended up doing that myself.
I try to write everyday. I do that much better over here than when I’m teaching. I always rewrite, usually fairly close-on which is to say first draft, then put it aside for 24 hours then more drafts.
I’ve been an inveterate reader of literary magazines since I was a teenager. There are always discoveries. You’re sitting in your easy chair, reading; you realize you’ve read a story or a group of poems four times, and you know, Yes, I want to go farther with this writer.
I don’t think it’s by accident that I was first attracted to translating two French women poets.
The phenomenon of university creative writing programs doesn’t exist in France. The whole idea is regarded as a novelty, or an oddity.