Marilyn Hacker Quotes

A collection of quotes by Marilyn Hacker.

Marilyn Hacker is an American poet, translator, and critic, born on November 27, 1942, in New York City. She is known for her innovative use of form, often writing in sonnets and ghazals. Hacker's work explores themes of love, sexuality, feminism, and identity, drawing on her own experiences as a queer, Jewish woman. She has received numerous awards for her poetry, including the National Book Award for Poetry. Hacker's work has been widely published and translated into various languages, making her an influential figure in contemporary poetry.

I started to send my work to journals when I was 26, which w

I started to send my work to journals when I was 26, which was just a question of when I got the courage up. They were mostly journals I had been reading for the previous six or seven years.

Poetry seems to have been eliminated as a literary genre, an

Poetry seems to have been eliminated as a literary genre, and installed instead, as a kind of spiritual aerobic exercise - nobody need read it, but anybody can do it.

Translation is an interestingly different way to be involved

Translation is an interestingly different way to be involved both with poetry and with the language that I've found myself living in much of the time. I think the two feed each other.

Everyone thinks they're going to write one book of poems or

Everyone thinks they're going to write one book of poems or one novel.

I have experienced healing through other writers' poetry, bu

I have experienced healing through other writers' poetry, but there's no way I can sit down to write in the hope a poem will have healing potential. If I do, I'll write a bad poem.

You are almost not free, if you are teaching a group of grad

You are almost not free, if you are teaching a group of graduate students, to become friends with one of them. I don't mean anything erotically charged, just a friendship.

Of the individual poems, some are more lyric and some are mo

Of the individual poems, some are more lyric and some are more descriptive or narrative. Each poem is fixed in a moment. All those moments written or read together take on the movement and architecture of a narrative.

When you translate poetry in particular, you're obliged to l

When you translate poetry in particular, you're obliged to look at how the writer with whom you're working puts together words, sentences, phrases, the triple tension between the line of verse, the syntax and the sentence.

My mother was told she couldn't go to medical school because

My mother was told she couldn't go to medical school because she was a woman and a Jew. So she became a teacher in the New York City public school system.

Clearly, once the student is no longer a student the possibi

Clearly, once the student is no longer a student the possibilities of relationship are enlarged.

As a teacher you are more or less obliged to pay the same am

As a teacher you are more or less obliged to pay the same amount of attention to everything. That can wear you down.