seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Netherlands
seen from Singapore
seen from Malaysia
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from Brazil
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from Singapore
“I have lived many lives. I have tried and failed at many things. I have won and lost much. I don’t know much, but I believe language lasts. In all its violence and tenderness, it lasts and lasts.”
—Natalie Diaz, in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine (2020)
“Poetry is a space where we have the responsibility to acknowledge the power of language—all the violence it is capable of, all the tenderness it is holding, and our need to reach forward toward new language at the same time we are returning to older language, so we can carry one another best.”
—Natalie Diaz, in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine (2020)
“‘The strongest fish is the one that swims upstream.’ Rejection’s gift is that it gives us something to push against, a necessary pressure that can help a writer sharpen focus, define vision, and accept (and perhaps even relish) the discomforts required to make work better.”
—Grant Faulkner, in “Rejection’s Gift: Divine Dissatisfaction” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine (2020)
“Poetry is not about an event. It is the event. Art is the resistance of complacency: It always stands in opposition to numbness. That is why it just doesn’t die, poetry—despite so many death notices. It is always there, waking us up when we get numb, poking us in the eye.”
—Ilya Kaminsky, in Garth Greenwell’s “Still Dancing” interview in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine (2019)
“Writing a book isn’t all that complicated, it turns out. You just sit down in whatever bits of time you can find, and you put words on a page. You do it, day after day, until the pages pile up, until your thoughts coalesce into ideas, and your ideas begin to sort themselves into themes.”
—Margaret Renkl, in “5 Over 50″ in the Poets & Writers Magazine November/December issue; read the rest at pw.org!
“It’s a numbers game, folks. The more you try, the more you succeed. The less you try, the less you succeed. This is true for everything. If you write more, you will write better. If you think about line length more, you will think about line length better. If you submit more, you will publish more. If you submit better, you will publish better.”
—Camille T. Dungy, in “Say Yes to Yourself: A Poet’s Guide to Living and Writing” in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine (2019)
“I’m sixty, but it doesn’t matter. The book took twelve years, but it doesn’t matter. There is no correlation between those numbers and the work’s resonance.”
—Timothy Brandoff, in “5 Over 50″ in the Poets & Writers Magazine November/December issue; read the rest at pw.org!
“I don’t actually believe in writer’s block. I believe in fallow periods. I believe fallow periods are necessary to restore the fertility of a field. I believe that if you’re not writing and you’re worried about not writing, you’re likely to one day write again. That if you’re not writing and not worried about not writing, you may have found new things to do with your time, and that’s okay too.”
—Camille T. Dungy, in “Say Yes to Yourself: A Poet’s Guide to Living and Writing” in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine (2019)
