--- title: "Meaning & Key Takeaway of: With ferocity and extraordinary craft…" description: "\"With ferocity and extraordinary craft, Lizzie Harris has made a book of poems that resonates far beyond the personal stories it tells. Stop Wanting rev..." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/49c/meghan-o-rourke-9574_awareness_with-ferocity-and-extraordinary-craft-li_2648448.jpg" --- # With ferocity and extraordinary craft, Lizzie Harris has… ![“With ferocity and extraordinary craft, Lizzie Harris has made a book of poems that resonates far beyond the personal stories it tells. Stop Wanting reveals, in every lyric, its author's profound metaphorical gifts. In its ironies and intensities, it brings to mind a writer like the young Sylvia…” quote by Meghan O'Rourke](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/49c/meghan-o-rourke-9574_awareness_with-ferocity-and-extraordinary-craft-li_2648448.jpg) [Download](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/49c/meghan-o-rourke-9574_awareness_with-ferocity-and-extraordinary-craft-li_2648448.jpg) [Open image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/49c/meghan-o-rourke-9574_awareness_with-ferocity-and-extraordinary-craft-li_2648448.jpg) > “With ferocity and extraordinary craft, Lizzie Harris has made a book of poems that resonates far beyond the personal stories it tells. Stop Wanting reveals, in every lyric, its author's profound metaphorical gifts. In its ironies and intensities, it brings to mind a writer like the young Sylvia Plath, though what is startling about Harris' s work is the way it combines those gifts with a muted, deft self-awareness. Most of all, these are wonderfully shaped, powerful, and surprising poems-a startling debut.” [Meghan O'Rourke](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/meghan-o-rourke/) ## About This Quote This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation. A debut poetry collection blends intense personal narrative with refined self‑awareness, echoing classic voices while forging its own path. **In simple terms:** Poems combine raw feeling with skillful craft. Key Takeaway Read with open heart and mind. Themes poetry self‑discovery literary tradition Mood inspirational introspective Type literary critical When to use this quote - book clubs - creative writing classes - personal journaling - literary analysis Key Concepts metaphor voice Questions to Reflect On - Which poem resonated most? - How does self‑awareness shape art? A Different Perspective Not all readers connect with experimental forms. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet [Awareness](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/awareness/) [Book](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/book/) [Books](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/books/) [Crafts](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/crafts/) [Debut](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/debut/) [Ferocity](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/ferocity/) [Intensity](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/intensity/) [Irony](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/irony/) [Mind](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/mind/) [Personal stories](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/personal-stories/) [Plath](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/plath/) [Poetry](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/poetry/) [Profound](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/profound/) [Self](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/self/) [Self -awareness](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/self-awareness/) [Stories](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/stories/) [Writing](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/writing/) ## Related quotes > [Any Canadian looking in the bathroom mirror is sure to recognize one of Guy Vanderhaeghe's people. Man Descending is the startling debut of an…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rudy-wiebe/any-canadian-looking-in-the-bathroom-mirror-is-sure-to-recognize-one/) [Rudy Wiebe](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rudy-wiebe/) > [Like all twenty-one-year-old poets, I thought I would be dead by thirty, and Sylvia Plath had not set a helpful example. For a while…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/margaret-atwood/like-all-twenty-one-year-old-poets-i-thought-i-would-be-dead-by/) [Margaret Atwood](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/margaret-atwood/) > [Sylvia Plath. Interesting poetess whose tragic suicide was misinterpreted as romantic by the college-girl mentality.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/woody-allen/sylvia-plath-interesting-poetess-whose-tragic-suicide-was/) [Woody Allen](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/woody-allen/) > [Like Sylvia Plath, Natalie Jeanne Champagne invites you so close to the pain and agony of her life of mental illness and addiction, which…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/andy-behrman/like-sylvia-plath-natalie-jeanne-champagne-invites-you-so-close-to/) [Andy Behrman](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/andy-behrman/) > [I loved 1930's women's pictures'films by Josef Von Sternberg or William Wyler. So, I fashioned a style out of that. The integrity and ethos…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/kola-boof/i-loved-1930-s-women-s-pictures-films-by-josef-von-sternberg-or/) [Kola Boof](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/kola-boof/) > [I love Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. I also love more cerebral poets like H.D. and Emily Dickinson. My parents subscribed to a monthly…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/francesca-lia-block/i-love-sylvia-plath-and-anne-sexton-i-also-love-more-cerebral-poets/) [Francesca Lia Block](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/francesca-lia-block/) > [Sylvia Plath wasn't scared of exploring the darker side of her psyche.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/alexis-bledel/sylvia-plath-wasn-t-scared-of-exploring-the-darker-side-of-her-psyche/) [Alexis Bledel](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/alexis-bledel/) > [Beachy Head brims with electrical currents flying backwards and forwards, with the force of poems that have been well fought out and felt. I…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/dorothea-lasky/beachy-head-brims-with-electrical-currents-flying-backwards-and/) [Dorothea Lasky](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/dorothea-lasky/) > [Sylvia Plath was just a month and a half older than I, and when she committed suicide I was only 30 - and very…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/anne-stevenson/sylvia-plath-was-just-a-month-and-a-half-older-than-i-and-when-she/) [Anne Stevenson](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/anne-stevenson/) > [“The blood jet is poetry, There is no stopping it. 'Kindness' by Sylvia Plath”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/sylvia-plath/the-blood-jet-is-poetry-there-is-no-stopping-it-kindness-by-sylvia/) [Sylvia Plath](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/sylvia-plath/) > [“I began to realize, with some little horror, that she was nothing more than a lowbrow, pop-psychology version of Sylvia Plath. It lasted forever,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/donna-tartt/i-began-to-realize-with-some-little-horror-that-she-was-nothing-more/) [Donna Tartt](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/donna-tartt/) > [Our suicidal poets (Plath, Berryman, Lowell, Jarrell, et al.) spent too much of their lives inside rooms and classrooms when they should have been…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/edward-abbey/our-suicidal-poets-plath-berryman-lowell-jarrell-et-al-spent-too-much/) [Edward Abbey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/edward-abbey/) > [“And besides, I'm not a writer. I don't go to coffeehouses and smoke, wear black, and analyze Sylvia Plath to the point of depression.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/megan-mccafferty/and-besides-i-m-not-a-writer-i-don-t-go-to-coffeehouses-and-smoke/) [Megan McCafferty](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/megan-mccafferty/) > [“Sylvia Plath is there for me when actual living people upon who I have depended upon my whole life, are not. What I mean…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/arlaina-tibensky/sylvia-plath-is-there-for-me-when-actual-living-people-upon-who-i/) [Arlaina Tibensky](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/arlaina-tibensky/) > [“Sylvia Plath and I met a long time ago. A really long time ago. Was it a summer day? No! It was a wintry…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/avijeet-das/sylvia-plath-and-i-met-a-long-time-ago-a-really-long-time-ago-was-it/) [Avijeet Das](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/avijeet-das/) ## More by Meghan O'Rourke > ['Hamlet' is the best description of grief I've read because it dramatizes grief rather than merely describing it.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/meghan-o-rourke/hamlet-is-the-best-description-of-grief-i-ve-read-because-it/) [Meghan O'Rourke](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/meghan-o-rourke/) > [Sometimes you don't even know what you want until you find out you can't have it.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/meghan-o-rourke/sometimes-you-don-t-even-know-what-you-want-until-you-find-out-you/) [Meghan O'Rourke](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/meghan-o-rourke/) > [Grief is at once a public and a private experience. One's inner, inexpressible disruption cannot be fully realized in one's public persona.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/meghan-o-rourke/grief-is-at-once-a-public-and-a-private-experience-one-s-inner/) [Meghan O'Rourke](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/meghan-o-rourke/) > [There are many kinds of loss embedded in a loss - the loss of the person, and the loss of the self you got…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/meghan-o-rourke/there-are-many-kinds-of-loss-embedded-in-a-loss-the-loss-of-the/) [Meghan O'Rourke](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/meghan-o-rourke/) > [One of the difficulties with grief research is that it risks making certain kinds of grief seem normal and others abnormal - and of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/meghan-o-rourke/one-of-the-difficulties-with-grief-research-is-that-it-risks-making/) [Meghan O'Rourke](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/meghan-o-rourke/) > [This is part of the complexity of grief: A piece of you recognizes it is an extreme state, an altered state, yet a large…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/meghan-o-rourke/this-is-part-of-the-complexity-of-grief-a-piece-of-you-recognizes-it/) [Meghan O'Rourke](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/meghan-o-rourke/) > [The people we most love do become a physical part of us, ingrained in our synapses, in the pathways where memories are created.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/meghan-o-rourke/the-people-we-most-love-do-become-a-physical-part-of-us-ingrained-in/) [Meghan O'Rourke](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/meghan-o-rourke/) > [My theory is this: Women falter when they're called on to be highly self-conscious about their talents. Not when they're called on to enact…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/meghan-o-rourke/my-theory-is-this-women-falter-when-they-re-called-on-to-be-highly/) [Meghan O'Rourke](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/meghan-o-rourke/) > [Grief is characterized much more by waves of feeling that lessen and reoccur, it's less like stages and more like different states of feeling.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/meghan-o-rourke/grief-is-characterized-much-more-by-waves-of-feeling-that-lessen-and/) [Meghan O'Rourke](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/meghan-o-rourke/) > [I wasn't prepared for the fact that grief is so unpredictable. It wasn't just sadness, and it wasn't linear. Somehow I'd thought that the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/meghan-o-rourke/i-wasn-t-prepared-for-the-fact-that-grief-is-so-unpredictable-it-wasn/) [Meghan O'Rourke](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/meghan-o-rourke/) > [For sure, the funeral industry seems intensely cynical to me and I don't think it is HELPING people mourn.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/meghan-o-rourke/for-sure-the-funeral-industry-seems-intensely-cynical-to-me-and-i-don/) [Meghan O'Rourke](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/meghan-o-rourke/) > [To mourn is to wonder at the strangeness that grief is not written all over your face in bruised hieroglyphics. And it's also to…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/meghan-o-rourke/to-mourn-is-to-wonder-at-the-strangeness-that-grief-is-not-written/) [Meghan O'Rourke](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/meghan-o-rourke/) > [A mother, after all, is your entry into the world. She is the shell in which you divide and become a life. Waking up…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/meghan-o-rourke/a-mother-after-all-is-your-entry-into-the-world-she-is-the-shell-in/) [Meghan O'Rourke](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/meghan-o-rourke/) > [But when my mother died, I found that I did not believe that she was gone.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/meghan-o-rourke/but-when-my-mother-died-i-found-that-i-did-not-believe-that-she-was/) [Meghan O'Rourke](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/meghan-o-rourke/) > [Like my mother before me, I have always been a good speller.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/meghan-o-rourke/like-my-mother-before-me-i-have-always-been-a-good-speller/) [Meghan O'Rourke](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/meghan-o-rourke/) [Explore all 71 Meghan O'Rourke quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/meghan-o-rourke/) ## More Awareness quotes > [An enlightened awareness is within each one of us, right at this moment. This enlightened awareness is truly unborn and marvellously illuminating; and everything…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/bankei-yotaku/an-enlightened-awareness-is-within-each-one-of-us-right-at-this/) [Bankei Yotaku](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/bankei-yotaku/) > [We have a fear of facing ourselves. That is the obstacle. Experiencing the innermost core of our existence is very embarrassing to a lot…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/chogyam-trungpa/we-have-a-fear-of-facing-ourselves-that-is-the-obstacle-experiencing/) [Chogyam Trungpa](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/chogyam-trungpa/) > [Listening is a very active awareness of the coming together of at least two lives. Listening, as far as I'm concerned, is certainly a…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/fred-rogers/listening-is-a-very-active-awareness-of-the-coming-together-of-at/) [Fred Rogers](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/fred-rogers/) > [“In the worldly life, due to maadakta (intoxication of the ego of ‘I am Chandubhai’), one has completely lost awareness of everything about one’s…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/dada-bhagwan/in-the-worldly-life-due-to-maadakta-intoxication-of-the-ego-of-i-am/) [Dada Bhagwan](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/dada-bhagwan/) > [A tree is a self: it is 'unseen shaping' more than it is leaves or bark, roots or cellulose or fruit ... What this…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/brian-swimme/a-tree-is-a-self-it-is-unseen-shaping-more-than-it-is-leaves-or-bark/) [Brian Swimme](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/brian-swimme/) > [I know the importance of highly trained awareness of the “moment” and the immediate and intuitive response of the photographer. It should be obvious…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/ansel-adams/i-know-the-importance-of-highly-trained-awareness-of-the-moment-and/) [Ansel Adams](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/ansel-adams/) > [The thing about living alone is that it gives you a lot of time to think. You don't necessarily reach any conclusions, because wisdom…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jonathan-tropper/the-thing-about-living-alone-is-that-it-gives-you-a-lot-of-time-to/) [Jonathan Tropper](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jonathan-tropper/) > [“It is not so much about fighting against the ego; it is more about harmonizing with it.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/grace-sara/it-is-not-so-much-about-fighting-against-the-ego-it-is-more-about/) [Grace Sara](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/grace-sara/) > [I'm part of a team that raises millions of dollars and raises awareness of HIV and AIDS all over the world.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/linda-evangelista/i-m-part-of-a-team-that-raises-millions-of-dollars-and-raises/) [Linda Evangelista](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/linda-evangelista/) > [“Don’t turn your face away. Once you’ve seen, you can no longer act like you don’t know. Open your eyes to the truth. It’s…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/vashti-quiroz-vega/don-t-turn-your-face-away-once-you-ve-seen-you-can-no-longer-act-like/) Vashti Quiroz-Vega > [“No one has any right to tell you that the way you perceive yourself is wrong. Because by doing so, they also discourage the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/kamand-kojouri/no-one-has-any-right-to-tell-you-that-the-way-you-perceive-yourself/) [Kamand Kojouri](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/kamand-kojouri/) > [Sometimes I am a collector of data, and only a collector, and am likely to be gross and miserly, piling up notes, pleased with…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/charles-fort/sometimes-i-am-a-collector-of-data-and-only-a-collector-and-am-likely/) [Charles Fort](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/charles-fort/) > [The bird with the thorn in its breast, it follows an immutable law; it is driven by it knows not what to impale itself,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/colleen-mccullough/the-bird-with-the-thorn-in-its-breast-it-follows-an-immutable-law-it/) [Colleen McCullough](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/colleen-mccullough/) > [Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal. You, O worthy one, are…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/anonymous/seeking-means-to-have-a-goal-but-finding-means-to-be-free-to-be/) [Anonymous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/anonymous/) > [Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rollo-may/human-freedom-involves-our-capacity-to-pause-between-the-stimulus-and/) [Rollo May](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rollo-may/) [Browse all 4,768 Awareness quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/awareness/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "With ferocity and extraordinary craft, Lizzie Harris has made a book of poems that resonates far beyond the personal stories it tells. Stop Wanting reveals, in every lyric, its author's profound metaphorical gifts. 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