I am like a table that eats its own legs off because it’s fallen in love with the floor. — Cate Marvin Fallen Copy Share Image
When fiction writers like my poems I feel like I've hit the jackpot. — Cate Marvin Feels Copy Share Image
One cannot have "success" in poetry. If I wanted to be successful, I'd have become a lawyer. — Cate Marvin Being successful 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… — Cate Marvin Believe Copy Share Image
I like it when poems are challenging, when they concern matters important and personal to the author. — Cate Marvin Books 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… — Cate Marvin Books 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 Bills 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… — Cate Marvin Confessional Copy Share Image
“We lay our words like tenuous plats, build a bridge over its unsinkable depth: Not a sea of longing, but the brack… — Cate Marvin Longing Copy Share Image
There IS a difference between poetry and prose! Poems should be sonically charged and new to the ear. — Cate Marvin Differences 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… — Cate Marvin Ideas Copy Share Image
It takes a certain kind of mind to narrate, to work through character motivation, to be unforgiving to one's writer-self when it… — Cate Marvin Certain 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… — Cate Marvin Happens 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… — Cate Marvin Balls Copy Share Image
Different drinks have different metaphorical weight. Wine's heady, gin is poisonous, vodka's cold, and beer is plain boring. In real life, I'm… — Cate Marvin Beer 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… — Cate Marvin Assessment 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… — Cate Marvin Attending 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… — Cate Marvin Crutches Copy Share Image
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… — Cate Marvin Bigs Copy Share Image
New York is one of those places people tend to derive a sense of identity from - as if, were to you… — Cate Marvin Cities Copy Share Image
When asked what I'd be if I weren't a writer, I'm tempted to respond with one of father's favorite phrases, one I… — Cate Marvin Despised Copy Share Image
Place is extremely important to my work because I am always pulling landscape imagery into my poems. — Cate Marvin Imagery Copy Share Image
I prefer poems that occupy an imaginative sphere. When I lived in Cincinnati, I was occasionally referred to as an "Ohio Poet;"… — Cate Marvin Country 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… — Cate Marvin Art Copy Share Image
The cool thing about having a book is that it takes on its own life. Once it's in the world, you can't… — Cate Marvin Book Copy Share Image
I love teaching poetry writing. Students come into the class thinking poetry has to be one way, then leave having created pieces… — Cate Marvin Class Copy Share Image
I admire the poetic relationship to place as enacted in Wallace Stevens' poems; his poetics strikes me as an argument against the… — Cate Marvin Admire Copy Share Image
I've just always loved animals. So I've often thought that if I weren't a writer I'd work for some nonprofit organization that… — Cate Marvin Animal Copy Share Image
Because I wake up late, my day is often short. I'm much more active in the evenings, during which I alternately read,… — Cate Marvin Active Copy Share Image
