Quote

But in Hiroshima, some people were wiped clean away, leaving only a wristwatch or a diary page. So no matter that I have inhibitions to fill all my pockets, I keep trying, hoping that one day I'll write a poem I can be proud to let sit in a museum exhibit as the only proof I existed.

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
Writing
Pages
Hopeful
Poignant
Trying
Clean
Existed
Exhibit
People
Proud
Pockets
Diary
Lines
Poem
Exhibits
Write
Fill
Diaries
Away
Page
Museum
Hiroshima
Keep
Proof
Hoping
Inhibitions
Matter
Leaving
Museums
Wiped

More quotes by 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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There are parts of me I only recognize from photographs.
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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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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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One of my highest priorities as an educator is to be as inclusive as possible.
Sarah Kay
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You are not made of metaphors, Not apologies, not excuses.
Sarah Kay
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Part of what I try to do in schools is take poetry off of a pedestal and make it a little more accessible and approachable.
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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Ever since I was little, I’ve loved making hand-made cards and presents and arts & crafts for people.
Sarah Kay
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Sometimes I am puzzling over something for months and months and the poem gets created in small bursts and rewritten a hundred times, and chopped up and put back together, etc. Occasionally, though rarely, a poem just plops out of my head fully-formed. But always it is a blueprint of what my brain is trying to navigate at that moment.
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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I don't remember the first poem that I wrote because I've been creating poems since I was around 2 or 3. I don't have any memory of that but my mom has written evidence of it. I've always liked playing with words so when I was younger it had a lot more to do with rhyme and sounds.
Sarah Kay
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Life will hit you hard in the face, wait for you to get back up just so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.
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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If I should have a daughter… I’m gonna paint the solar system on the backs of her hands so she has to learn the entire universe before she can say ‘oh I know that like the back of my hand.
Sarah Kay
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It’s not just the adage ‘write what you know,’ it’s about gathering up all of the knowledge and experience you’ve collected up to now to help you dive into the things you don’t know.
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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The first spoken word poem I ever wrote was when I was 14 and I wrote it because I was accidentally signed up for a teen poetry slam. Because I loved poetry I said that I'd try it out.
Sarah Kay
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Ever hear that expression, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times? That's what high school was like for me. Both of those - all the time.
Sarah Kay
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My self-confidence can be measured out in teaspoons mixed into my poetry, and it still always tastes funny in my mouth.
Sarah Kay