Marvin Bell Quotes

• Learn the rules, break the rules, make up new rules, break the new rules.

  Marvin Bell

  Break

  "Thirty-two Statements About Writing Poetry (statement #5)". "The Writer's Chronicle", Commemorative Issue, 2002.

  44 Copy quote

• Prose is prose because of what it includes; poetry is poetry because of what it leaves out.

  Marvin Bell

  Poetry Is, Prose

  Marvin Bell (1994). “A Marvin Bell reader: selected poetry and prose”, University Press of New England

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• Our job is to become more and more of what we are. The growth of a poet seems to be related to his or her becoming less and less embarrassed about more and more.

  Marvin Bell

  Jobs, Growth, Becoming

  Marvin Bell (1983). “Old snow just melting: essays and interviews”, Univ of Michigan Pr

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• Poetry is the least imposition on silence in a world of chatter.

  Marvin Bell

  Silence, World, Poetry Is

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• Try to write poems at least one person in the room will hate.

  Marvin Bell

  Hate, Writing, Trying

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• A nation's art is the expression of its soul.

  Marvin Bell

  Art, Expression, Soul

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• Much of our lives involves the word “no.” In school we are mostly told, “Don't do it this way. Do it that way.” But art is the big yes. In art, you get a chance to make something where there was nothing.

  Marvin Bell

  Art, School, Way

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• Sometimes the best revision of a poem is a new poem.

  Marvin Bell

  Revision, Sometimes

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• The writing of a poem is, for me, in the first place, an almost total act of abandon leading to discovery leading to recognition.

  Marvin Bell

  Writing, Discovery, Firsts

  "What You See Is What You Get: Marvin Bell in Conversation". Interview with Haines Eason, www.poets.org. August 20, 2009.

  5 Copy quote

• I speak to you in one tongue/ but every moment that ever mattered to me/ occurred in another language.

  Marvin Bell

  Tongue, Language, Speak

  Marvin Bell (1983). “Old snow just melting: essays and interviews”, Univ of Michigan Pr

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• I'm partial to coffee shops, brain work, and poems on the page. I write after midnight. Sometimes, twisty syntax happens, and I surrender.

  Marvin Bell

  Coffee, Writing, Brain

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• The war to preserve the privilege of mythmaking

  Marvin Bell

  Motivational, War, Privilege

  Marvin Bell (2013). “Mars Being Red”, p.3, Copper Canyon Press

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