“It's why muse is so impatient with me. I don't ever go to her until after the teaching or whatever is over.” Quote by Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“In that way, I don't understand myself. It might have to do with my own conflicts, where to place my body as a child, which I have carried over to now. In this way I'm constantly dislocated.” WayChildrenBodyMightMy OwnConflict Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“I don't know where to place my body. Everyone notices that about me. I'm very restless.” KnowsBodyRestless Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“I'm nomadic. Even when I'm a visiting professor here at the City University of Hong Kong, in this campus flat, I'm constantly getting up, sitting down, picking this or that up. You can't do that and be a writer. You need to be able to sit still.” NeedsStillsAbleCitiesSittingUniversityFlatsProfessorsVisitingCampusSitting DownHong KongNomadic Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“In short, for me - I'm kind of projecting onto you - distraction has become a modus vivendi, a way of life. Rather than complaining, I am recognizing that I couldn't do what I wanted to do because I'm distracted.” WayKindWantedComplainingDistractionRecognizingDistracted Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“One arrives at a recognition that one needs to be distracted.” NeedsRecognitionDistracted Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“This distraction is what one wants, which is very, very bad for the muse, because the muse hates not being in the line of sight. It's no longer an external conflict, like, oh, I have all these demands and I don't like them. The split is in the self. This may explain why, when I was in Santa Barbara before I went to Singapore and then now to Hong Kong, there was a writing moment when I was writing a poem a day. I had never done that before.” WantWritingMaySelfDoneMomentsHateLinesDemandConflictSightDistractionSplitsMuseSantaSingaporeHong KongBarbaraSanta Barbara Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“I was walking every morning, and I'd take my iPod and paper and pen. As I walked, I wrote a poem, and then I'd come home - and sometimes it's legible, sometimes not - I typed the poem up. So I have a new, yet to be published, collection of poems now. It's called Walker's Alphabet, and among other things, it is about walking. My most recent collection of poems in 2010, incidentally, was titled WALKING backwards.” SometimesHomeMorningWalkingPaperCollectionsPensComing HomeEvery MorningBackwardsAlphabetIpodsWalkersWalking BackwardsPaper And Pen Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“You've read some of the poems in this new unpublished book [Walker's Alphabet], e.g., the poem "C." I have a number of poems whose titles are letters of the alphabet: A, B, C, D, E, F.” BookNumbersLettersTitlesAlphabetWalkersLetters Of The Alphabet Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“I do want to do the entire alphabet. There's in [Walker's Alphabet] a poem called "A Life" in that grouping. I was going to change that title to "A."” WantTitlesAlphabetWalkers Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim