Marvin Bell
Learn the rules, break the rules, make up new rules, break the new rules.Collection: Break
Prose is prose because of what it includes; poetry is poetry because of what it leaves out.Collection: Poetry Is
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 more and more.Collection: Jobs
Poetry is the least imposition on silence in a world of chatter.Collection: Silence
Try to write poems at least one person in the room will hate.Collection: Hate
A nation's art is the expression of its soul.Collection: Art
Sometimes the best revision of a poem is a new poem.Collection: Revision
Much of our lives involves the word “no.” In school we are mostly told, “Don't do it this way. Do it that way.” But art is the big yes. In art, you get a chance to make something where there was nothing.Collection: Art
I speak to you in one tongue/ but every moment that ever mattered to me/ occurred in another language.Collection: Tongue
The writing of a poem is, for me, in the first place, an almost total act of abandon leading to discovery leading to recognition.Collection: Writing
I'm partial to coffee shops, brain work, and poems on the page. I write after midnight. Sometimes, twisty syntax happens, and I surrender.Collection: Coffee
The war to preserve the privilege of mythmakingCollection: Motivational