“I had no one to help me, but the T. S. Eliot helped me.
So when people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn’t be read at school because it is irrelevant, or any of the strange stupid things that are said about poetry and its place in our lives, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language – and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers – a language powerful enough to say how it is.
It isn’t a hiding place. It is a finding place.”
― Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
So when people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn’t be read at school because it is irrelevant, or any of the strange stupid things that are said about poetry and its place in our lives, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language – and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers – a language powerful enough to say how it is.
It isn’t a hiding place. It is a finding place.”
― Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”
― The White Album
― The White Album
“I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”
― A Room of One’s Own
― A Room of One’s Own
“My belief is that art should not be comforting; for comfort, we have mass entertainment and one another. Art should provoke, disturb, arouse our emotions, expand our sympathies in directions we may not anticipate and may not even wish.”
―
―
“The dark stone in my heart pulsed quietly, igniting like a coal in a hearth. Who is in my heart? I wondered.”
― M Train: A Memoir
― M Train: A Memoir
Mar*ne’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Mar*ne’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Mar*ne
Lists liked by Mar*ne











































