My mother was told she couldnt 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. – Marilyn Hacker
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. – Marilyn Hacker
Translation is an interestingly different way to be involved both with poetry and with the language that Ive found myself living in much of the time. I think the two feed each other. – Marilyn Hacker
I have experienced healing through other writers poetry, but theres no way I can sit down to write in the hope a poem will have healing potential. If I do, Ill write a bad poem. – Marilyn Hacker
Do not assume that she who seeks to comfort you now, lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. Her life may also have much sadness and difficulty, that remains far beyond yours. Were it otherwise, she would never have been able to find these words. – Rainer Maria Rilke