Joan Larkin Quotes

• It takes courage to get clear about what your vision of the work is and to be persistent about it and pursue it, whatever you're saying. I'm still in a long learning process.

  Joan Larkin

  Long, Vision, Process

  "Road Trip". Interview with Ali Liebegott, logger.believermag.com. October 25, 2013.

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• I think translation is an impossible job, and I admire the people who do it in a way that brings poetry to us that we wouldn't have access to.

  Joan Larkin

  Jobs, Thinking, People

  "Road Trip". Interview with Ali Liebegott, logger.believermag.com. October 25, 2013.

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• Rhythms and sounds are often the first thing I hear and want in a poem, so I can't imagine trying to translate something without at least being able to hear what it sounds like.

  Joan Larkin

  Trying, Firsts, Sound

  "Road Trip". Interview with Ali Liebegott, logger.believermag.com. October 25, 2013.

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• People want poetry and need it - we need what's not honored by the corporate mentality that has taken over. It gives people a language for responding to the violence, the shallowness, the near-nothings, the toys we're all supposed to want. It's a way for people to be able to connect with themselves.

  Joan Larkin

  Taken, People, Giving

  "Road Trip". Interview with Ali Liebegott, logger.believermag.com. October 25, 2013.

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• Poetry is a tree with very deep roots and while there may be excitement about this or that new little branch, you're not going to make anything original by just doing whatever's being rewarded at the moment.

  Joan Larkin

  Roots, Tree, Branches

  "Road Trip". Interview with Ali Liebegott, logger.believermag.com. October 25, 2013.

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• Whether the poet is living or dead, they're part of our imaginative community.

  Joan Larkin

  Community, Poet, Imaginative

  "Road Trip". Interview with Ali Liebegott, logger.believermag.com. October 25, 2013.

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• People need what they think of as a poem to be read at their bar mitzvah, their wedding, a funeral, whatever. And people are looking for hope and inspiration. I understand that.

  Joan Larkin

  Inspiration, Thinking, People

  "Road Trip". Interview with Ali Liebegott, logger.believermag.com. October 25, 2013.

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• I love that people want to know about poetry. It's one of the ways of keeping alive.

  Joan Larkin

  People, Alive, Want

  "Road Trip". Interview with Ali Liebegott, logger.believermag.com. October 25, 2013.

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• Keep growing. Stay awake. Beware of gurus. Keep a low overhead.

  Joan Larkin

  Growing, Guru, Lows

  "Road Trip". Interview with Ali Liebegott, logger.believermag.com. October 25, 2013.

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• I'm much more capable of cutting back than of expanding. I've gotten very surgical about poems.

  Joan Larkin

  Cutting, Expanding, Capable

  "Road Trip". Interview with Ali Liebegott, logger.believermag.com. October 25, 2013.

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• I love stories, but writing fiction is another craft and I don't feel as if I have it.

  Joan Larkin

  Writing, Fiction, Stories

  "Road Trip". Interview with Ali Liebegott, logger.believermag.com. October 25, 2013.

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• There's always some reason not to be writing and I regret the times I give in to that, because then writing feels strange - I feel like I have to reinvent the wheel. There are poets who don't have to do that.

  Joan Larkin

  Regret, Writing, Giving

  "Road Trip". Interview with Ali Liebegott, logger.believermag.com. October 25, 2013.

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• I'm trying to stay open to the idea that the Internet is not the evil foe of publishing but the handmaiden that will turn out to be a blessing for poets and writers.

  Joan Larkin

  Blessing, Ideas, Evil

  "Road Trip". Interview with Ali Liebegott, logger.believermag.com. October 25, 2013.

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• There are some books in which every poem is a facet of the same thing. So the book is like a piece of music. And there are books of poems that I love so much that I carry them around with me.

  Joan Larkin

  Book, Pieces, Facets

  "Road Trip". Interview with Ali Liebegott, logger.believermag.com. October 25, 2013.

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• My books have come many years apart and each one seems to reflect a period of experience. Ending the book is like putting a period on a certain movement. Interior and external - both.

  Joan Larkin

  Book, Years, Movement

  "Road Trip". Interview with Ali Liebegott, logger.believermag.com. October 25, 2013.

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• I think we're always most interested in the things we're doing right now.

  Joan Larkin

  Thinking, Right Now, Doing Right

  "Road Trip". Interview with Ali Liebegott, logger.believermag.com. October 25, 2013.

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• I worked in an art gallery for a few years, doing administrative assistance stuff, and it exposed me to what the whole world of art dealers and the art market was about.

  Joan Larkin

  Art, Years, Stuff

  "Road Trip". Interview with Ali Liebegott, logger.believermag.com. October 25, 2013.

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• After I started publishing poetry I got to teach creative writing. Eventually I was promoted and even got tenure. But then I felt compelled to drop everything and move. But I've been teaching for a long time. More than four decades.

  Joan Larkin

  Moving, Teaching, Writing

  "Road Trip". Interview with Ali Liebegott, logger.believermag.com. October 25, 2013.

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• Spanish and English have such different music, and in my own poetry I feel much less drawn to fluid sounds than I do toward the hard sounds and rhythms that come out of the Anglo-Saxon roots of English.

  Joan Larkin

  Roots, Sound, Different

  "Road Trip". Interview with Ali Liebegott, logger.believermag.com. October 25, 2013.

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• Teaching has given me a community that cares about poetry, and I'm grateful for that.

  Joan Larkin

  Teaching, Grateful, Community

  "Road Trip". Interview with Ali Liebegott, logger.believermag.com. October 25, 2013.

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• From the beginning. I was a poem-writing child. I wrote little novels in my composition book when I was eight, nine years old.

  Joan Larkin

  Children, Book, Writing

  "Road Trip". Interview with Ali Liebegott, logger.believermag.com. October 25, 2013.

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