I have no precise idea of who makes up my readership. I'm surprised when I discover people have read my poems at all.

- Cate Marvin

The fiction writer has a lot of balls to juggle. Setting, pacing, dialogue, and so on. And let's not forget: plot. That was always a hard one for me.…

- Cate Marvin

I admire the poetic relationship to place as enacted in Wallace Stevens' poems; his poetics strikes me as an argument against the restraints of reali…

- Cate Marvin

It takes a certain kind of mind to narrate, to work through character motivation, to be unforgiving to one's writer-self when it comes down to creati…

- Cate Marvin

To think of writing poetry as a "career" is not only ridiculous, it's dangerous. To the imagination. To the way one thinks of art. The reason poetry …

- Cate Marvin

I do believe that one's writing life needs to be kept separate from Po-Biz. Personally, I deal with this by not attending too many poetry readings, p…

- Cate Marvin

One of the reasons poetry is such an amazing genre to work with is because it constantly reinvents itself and re-negotiates its terms with the reader.

- Cate Marvin

Different drinks have different metaphorical weight. Wine's heady, gin is poisonous, vodka's cold, and beer is plain boring. In real life, I'm a big …

- Cate Marvin

I consider poetry my vocation, not my "career." My career is as a university professor; that's what pays the bills.

- Cate Marvin