Quote

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.

Dawn Lundy Martin

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Dawn Lundy Martin
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: January 1
Activist
Poet
Writer
Feel
Feeling
Persistent
Even
Though
Stretch
Traumas
Trying
Desire
Trapped
Confinement
Believe
Often
Escape
Resulting
Thinking
Comes
Inevitable
Stripped
Life
Feelings
Effect
Trap
Like
Away
Gift
Trauma
Power
Childhood
Compulsion

More quotes by Dawn Lundy Martin

Image
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.
Dawn Lundy Martin
Image
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.
Dawn Lundy Martin
Image
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.
Dawn Lundy Martin
Image
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.
Dawn Lundy Martin
Image
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.
Dawn Lundy Martin