(b. 1955– )
U.S. poet, memoirist, essayist, and professor“We sit in a silence it’s hard not to scribble in with chat.”
more info“So amazon knuckles the Justice Dept to knuckle Apple and the publishers for price fixing. Why? Amazon wants to charge $9.99 for every book, as if it were an undifferentiated commodity. Intellectual property is not frozen orange juice.”
more infosource: Karr’s Facebook page, April 11, 2012.
category: book, capitalism, intellectual property, publishing
medium: Social media
“By age thirty, I’m not writing squat, which I blame on my ramped-up consulting schedule, knowing full well my favorite poet was a full-time insurance exec.”
more infosource: Lit (New York: Harper, 2009), 120.
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category: day job, poet, procrastination, writing
medium: Memoir
“So many interesting females in this deranged city.”
more infosource: Facebook status update, November 9, 2011.
category: New York City, women
medium: Social media
“Writing about spiritual stuff for a secular audience is like doing card tricks on the radio.”
more infosource: “The Art of Memoir No. 1,” The Paris Review, Winter 2009, No. 191.
category: magic, religion, secular, spiritual, translation, writing
medium: interview
notes: read transcript here
“Poetry is a hypodermic injection of passion. It gets under your skin like snake fangs and poisons you into being alive.”
more infosource: Twitter, June 28, 2010 9:27:40 PM EDT via web
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category: passion, poetry, Twitter pearls, writing
medium: social media
“The sky above us was going from musky yellow to purple. Colors of a cut plum, Mother said.”
more infosource: The Liars’ Club (New York: Penguin Books, 2005), 10th anniversary edition, 319.
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category: color, nature, plum, sky
medium: memoir
“I never knew despair could lie.”
more infosource: The Liars’ Club (New York: Penguin Books, 2005), 10th anniversary edition, 320.
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category: depression, despair, lie
medium: memoir
“Such a small, pure object a poem could be, made of nothing but air, a tiny string of letters, maybe small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. But it could blow everybody’s head off.”
more infosource: Lit (New York: Harper, 2009), 59.
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category: poetry, words, writing
medium: memoir
“Counterphobic, a shrink once called it, meaning I run fast toward any event I suspect might be excruciating.”
more infosource: Lit (New York: Harper, 2009), 94.
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category: emotion, shrink, therapy, unhealthy behavior
medium: memoir
“Count yourself lucky…You’re still promising until your first book’s out.”
more infosource: Lit (New York: Harper, 2009), 68.
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category: career, first book, literary agent, publishing, writing
medium: memoir
Mary Karr