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Dawn Lundy Martin Biography

Writer

Dawn Lundy Martin is an American writer known for her works that explore themes of identity, race, and gender. Her distinctive writing style has earned her a wide readership.

Related Quotes

“At the Third Wave Foundation, we were asking questions like, "How can we get more voters registered who support our issues?" or "How do we want to give away of money so that it has the greatest impact?" But, the poems were involved in questions of feeling whole, negotiating sexual trauma, and speaking to what has been lost forever. I've always been a person who feels most energized when I am both creating art and working toward social change, but I often have difficulty talking about the two in the same breath.”

Giving Art Feelings Support Forever Difficulty Wave Trauma Social Change

Author:Dawn Lundy Martin

“Can poetry be a form of social change? I don't know the answer to that. I do think art can have a social impact even if it may be difficult to see the effects of that impact, to assess or measure it.”

Thinking Art Difficult Poetry Is Social Change

Author:Dawn Lundy Martin

“I've long been a fan of Adrian Piper's work. I find her performance pieces moving in their willingness to lean toward the absurd. Yet, there's a social critique in her interaction with people who may or may not have understood that the artist was present.”

People Long Moving Artist Absurd Willingness Critique

Author:Dawn Lundy Martin

“I once asked Myung Mi Kim where gender is located in her work, and she said simply, "it's everywhere," resisting the notion that gender needs to be overly inscribed into the text with some kind of message. Hers is the kind of work that has most influenced how I make poetry - the idea that we don't need to enclose or nail down gender or race, for that matter.”

Kind Gender

Author:Dawn Lundy Martin

“My goals as an artist have nothing to do with speaking to an audience. I love to have a good time, but when it comes to poetry I'm not really interested in writing poetry that seeks to entertain or operate safely within the mainstream and, to be clear, I'm not disparaging the really phenomenal work that does - it's just not my interest as a poet.”

Writing Artist Goal Interest Audience Poet Good Times Having A Good Time Phenomenal Writing Poetry

Author:Dawn Lundy Martin

“When my work does speak to audiences, when it creates audiences around it, I feel a little less crazy because what that means is that there are folks out there who are interested in thinking about themselves and the world through a prism. The prism is a labor and there can be a pleasure in labor.”

Thinking World Mean Speak Pleasure Audience Crazy Labor

Author:Dawn Lundy Martin

“I reach readers rather unintentionally, I think, and those readers likely connect with the slant, the off-kilter, the part of the road you can barely see from the well-traveled road. So, when I'm writing, I'm not thinking about audience at all. Instead, I'm trying to see behind those shrubs, down that hidden path. We're the weirdos of the world and there are so many weirdos.”

Thinking World Writing Trying Audience Path Weirdo

Author:Dawn Lundy Martin

“I'm interested is the oblique as a concept deeply connected to human lived experience, not separate from it. I was listening to an interview with film director Stephen Frears on NPR the other day and he said, "People's lives are never what you think they are," or something like that. Human lives are oblique. It makes sense to me that attending to them in language is as well.”

Thinking Film Language Listening Make Sense

Author:Dawn Lundy Martin

“For me, a lot of Discipline was very personal writing, like writing through and working out being inside this gendered body and also the compulsions of the body, the muting of the mind as driven by the body. My father had died some years ago so he haunts the book too, just floats through it ghost-like. But, the writing of every book is different for me. They are so like living creatures, these books, so I don't know what's carried over into the writing of the next things - except maybe that I'm best when I make my writing practice a routine.”

Writing Mind Book Different Father Discipline Work Out Driven

Author:Dawn Lundy Martin

“When I am writing poetry, I try to make my mind go a little lazy, to not think too much, as a way of opening up the part of the brain that makes poems. If I'm successful in this part of the process I'm often not. If my mind gets too lazy it will linger in familiar boring territory, it's like my mind can stroke the physical world.”

Thinking World Writing Trying Mind Brain Successful Boring Familiar Lazy Writing Poetry

Author:Dawn Lundy Martin

“The precise laziness is akin to letting your eyes blur or glimpsing what's at the corners in peripheral vision. Or those moments when you think you see something but you're not sure you actually saw it in the end. The way I get to these places is just practice, like a kind of meditation that shapes my brain.”

Thinking Kind Moments Eye Brain Vision Meditation Not Sure Laziness Blur

Author:Dawn Lundy Martin

“With my students I give them lots and lots of guided writing. Part of it is as simple as writing a lot but not toward anything. The mind floats. Then I help them see where the language has heat. If we do this a lot in class, students eventually relax into this writing practice and enjoy it. Even just that - writing pleasure without the anxiety of "audience" or "grade" or "success" - is a kind of impetus toward the unfamiliar.”

Giving Writing Mind Kind Helping Language Enjoy Simple Pleasure Audience Students Anxiety Relax

Author:Dawn Lundy Martin

“I often feel trapped. I often feel like I'm trying to escape some trap, be it a way of thinking, a compulsion, or a way of life. I believe this persistent feeling comes from childhood traumas that stripped away my power. The effect, though, the resulting persistent desire to stretch out of confinement even when confinement is inevitable, is a gift.”

Thinking Trying Believe Feelings Desire I Believe Childhood Trauma Inevitable Persistent

Author:Dawn Lundy Martin

“I think the occupation of my poetry is akin to this desire to be many things at once - things that sometimes conflict. Regarding how the quotidian makes its way into the work, it's all of it, in a way. Like, when I'm writing poems, I'm just picking up scraps of whatever is happening around me - a geographical location, a love affair failed, the day the air felt like rope.”

Thinking Writing Sometimes Desire Conflict Affair Poetry Is Love Affair Scrap

Author:Dawn Lundy Martin

About the Author

Known for: Writer
Quotes: 14

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