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

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

The war to preserve the privilege of mythmaking

- Marvin Bell

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

- Marvin Bell

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

- Marvin Bell

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

- Marvin Bell

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

- Marvin Bell

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 mo…

- Marvin Bell

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

- Marvin Bell