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Douglas A. Martin Biography

Poet

Douglas A. Martin is a contemporary poet known for his unique poetic style and profound themes. His works often explore the complexities of personal identity, memory, and culture.

Writing Fiction Escape Bronte Historical Novel Branwell

Book:Branwell: A Novel of the Brontë Brother

Source: Branwell: A Novel of the Brontë Brother

“I can start with the idea of taking until you can take off, through the idea that all of my writing foregrounds the idea of how I'm taking from my own life. I'm stealing from my own life in a way, and from the people around me, but in service of getting somewhere else. I'm starting with an autobiographical impulse, to get a better vantage on the circumstances of the life that I happen to be in at the moment and how that life connects to others.”

People Writing Moments Circumstances Stealing Impulse

Author:Douglas A. Martin

“William Faulkner was the master of what one must do to be serious. But I don't understand why people haven't moved forward from that, why that's not where the line in the sand is that you would see from. When I think about the reception of my own writing and what seems "difficult," there is an actual precedent.”

People Thinking Writing Difficult Serious Moved Sand

Author:Douglas A. Martin

“As a gay writer and someone who began by writing autobiographical fiction, it's hard to get away from chatter of "You're just a narcissist," "You're just a gay man," "You're just looking for yourself in somebody else," "Why does your boyfriend look like you," a kind of baggage that you already have to create in the face of.”

Men Writing Kind Like You Gay Get Away Narcissist Gay Men Your Boyfriend

Author:Douglas A. Martin

“If you're reading a book that I've written in the first person, without named characters, you will periodically perhaps as a reader remind yourself: Well, this is or isn't the author. This is a character.I think the second person turns that dynamic onto you, or situates it within you: This isn't really me, but what aspect of the character is really me? That creates a loop of seduction.”

Thinking Book Character Reading Seduction

Author:Douglas A. Martin

“I think Stephen Crane too becomes trapped in a myth that poetry should be operating at a certain level, that there's the real world and the reflection of that real world. I don't exist in any of these historical periods. I exist in the period in which I'm writing the book. So I only attempt to frame this in a way that I myself relate to.”

Thinking World Writing Book Real Reflection Historical Myth Real World

Author:Douglas A. Martin

“I'm writing as I'm reading. I'm constantly already engaged in dialogue with the critics. None of these are my ideas solely. They are my form of entering into a dialogue with ideas that are already out there, and calibrating how much sense these make to me or not. I want to be responsible to the work that has already been done.”

Writing Done Reading Responsible Critics Dialogue Being Responsible

Author:Douglas A. Martin

“I'm always writing a new book even when books are being shopped around, and none of my books has been published in the order that they have been written.”

Writing Book

Author:Douglas A. Martin

“I say sometimes that I'm a poet but I work in the novel form. That's what I do. That's what makes sense to me. I think of myself as someone who makes particular interventions into genres that already exist.”

Thinking Sometimes Novel Poet Make Sense

Author:Douglas A. Martin

About the Author

Born: September 29, 1973
Known for: Poet
Quotes: 9

Books & Sources

Branwell: A Novel of the Brontë BrotherRelated source material

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