The cool thing about having a book is that it takes on its own life. Once it's in the world, you can't follow it. You'd have to have a pretty fantastic surveillance system to track its migration. — Cate Marvin Copy Share Image
The fiction writer has a lot of balls to juggle. Setting, pacing, dialogue, and so on. And let's not forget: plot. That was always… — Cate Marvin Copy Share Image
One cannot have "success" in poetry. If I wanted to be successful, I'd have become a lawyer. — Cate Marvin Copy Share Image
One of the reasons poetry is such an amazing genre to work with is because it constantly reinvents itself and re-negotiates its terms with… — Cate Marvin Copy Share Image
I have no precise idea of who makes up my readership. I'm surprised when I discover people have read my poems at all. — Cate Marvin Copy Share Image
Confessional poetry is, to my mind, more slippery than poems that are sloppily autobiographical; I find the confessional mode much more akin to dramatic… — Cate Marvin Copy Share Image
I do believe that one's writing life needs to be kept separate from Po-Biz. Personally, I deal with this by not attending too many… — Cate Marvin Copy Share Image
I place a lot of emphasis on process and revision because I believe that all of my students can become better writers through hard… — Cate Marvin Copy Share Image
I consider poetry my vocation, not my "career." My career is as a university professor; that's what pays the bills. — Cate Marvin Copy Share Image
I like it when poems are challenging, when they concern matters important and personal to the author. — Cate Marvin Copy Share Image
I find the elitism and blatant provincialism of many (Manhattan-based) New Yorkers unattractive. Just as place can be an identity crutch that helps a… — Cate Marvin Copy Share Image
I am like a table that eats its own legs off because it’s fallen in love with the floor. — Cate Marvin Copy Share Image
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… — Cate Marvin Copy Share Image
I encourage my students to be honest in their assessment of both the published work we read and the work of their classmates. I… — Cate Marvin Copy Share Image
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.… — Cate Marvin Copy Share Image
