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I use poetry to help me work through what I don’t understand, but I show up to each new poem with a backpack full of everywhere else that I’ve been.

Sarah Kay

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Sarah Kay
Age: 28 †
Born: 1971
Born: February 3
Died: 1999
Died: February 20
Author
Educator
Playwright
Writer
Brentwood
Essex
Sarah Marie Kane
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Backpack
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Everywhere
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Poetry

More quotes by Sarah Kay

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I don't think I ever had a morning where I woke up and said I'm going to be a professional poet. I know I've always loved poetry, I've always loved writing poetry and I've always loved sharing poetry. I've also always known that I wanted that to somehow be a very large part of my life and I'm very fortunate that it's such a large part of my life.
Sarah Kay
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I do like celebrating women, I do like celebrating different lifestyles and choices and people and it makes me happy when others find my work empowering.
Sarah Kay
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I write poetry to figure things out. Any time I’m trying to wrap my head around something, poetry is like a puzzle-solving strategy for me.
Sarah Kay
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You can only fit so many words in a postcard, only so many in a phone call, only so many into space before you forget that words are sometimes used for things other than filling emptiness.
Sarah Kay
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Most days it feels as if the world is whirling around me and I am standing still. In slow motion, I watch the colors blur people and faces all become a massive wash.
Sarah Kay
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Some people read palms to tell your future, but I read hands to tell your past. Each scar makes a story worth telling. Each callused palm, each cracked knuckle is a missed punch or years in a factory.
Sarah Kay
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Think it's so unfair when people think that you're not a real artist unless you're getting paid for it....I personally know so many poets that work a 9 to 5 in a cubicle and come home and write poetry. Their poetry is just as powerful and moving as anything that I've ever written, if not more.
Sarah Kay
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No matter your wreckage. There will be someone to find you beautiful, despite the cruddy metal. Your ruin is not to be hidden behind paint and canvas. Let them see the cracks. Someone will come to sing into these empty spaces.
Sarah Kay
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Artistry is important. Skill, hard work, rewriting, editing, and careful, careful craft: All of these are necessary. These are what separate the beginners from experienced artists.
Sarah Kay
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There are parts of me I only recognize from photographs.
Sarah Kay
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Poetry makes people nervous. Especially in schools.
Sarah Kay
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One of my highest priorities as an educator is to be as inclusive as possible.
Sarah Kay
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Spoken word teaches that if you have the ability to express yourself and the courage to present those stories and opinions, you could be rewarded with a room full of your peers or your community who will listen.
Sarah Kay
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Fingers interlocked like a beautiful accordion of flesh or a zipper of prayer
Sarah Kay
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I want [my daughter] to look at the world through the underside of a glass-bottom boat, to look through a microscope at the galaxies that exist on the pinpoint of a human mind.
Sarah Kay
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There is hurt that cannot be fixed by band aids or poetrybecause no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I’ve tried.
Sarah Kay
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I want to welcome folks to poetry, especially those who may have previously felt unwelcome I want to celebrate everyone who is trying to make sense of this world through poetry the way I try to.
Sarah Kay
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I fell in love with poetry through storytelling, so my poetry tends to be fairly narrative. I like characters, I like having a beginning, middle, and ending, though not necessarily in that order.
Sarah Kay
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If I should have a daughter, instead of Mom, she's going to call me Point B.
Sarah Kay
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Because there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it's sent away.
Sarah Kay