Quotes from Joan Larkin

I think translation is an impossible job, and I admire the people who do it in a way that brings poetry to us that we wouldn't have access to.

Is 'vagina' suitable for use in a sonnet? I don't suppose so. A famous poet told me, 'Vagina's ugly.' Meaning, of course, the sound of it. In poems. Meanwhile he inserts his penis frequently into his verse, calling it seriously, 'My Penis'. It is short, I know, and dignified. I mean of course the sound of it. In poems.

There are some books in which every poem is a facet of the same thing. So the book is like a piece of music. And there are books of poems that I love so much that I carry them around with me.

I love stories, but writing fiction is another craft and I don't feel as if I have it.

I love that people want to know about poetry. It's one of the ways of keeping alive.

People need what they think of as a poem to be read at their bar mitzvah, their wedding, a funeral, whatever. And people are looking for hope and inspiration. I understand that.

It takes courage to get clear about what your vision of the work is and to be persistent about it and pursue it, whatever you're saying. I'm still in a long learning process.

I worked in an art gallery for a few years, doing administrative assistance stuff, and it exposed me to what the whole world of art dealers and the art market was about.

My books have come many years apart and each one seems to reflect a period of experience. Ending the book is like putting a period on a certain movement. Interior and external - both.