Quote

Not all poetry wants to be storytelling. And not all storytelling wants to be poetry. But great storytellers and great poets share something in common: They had something to say, and did.

Sarah Kay

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Sarah Kay
Age: 28 †
Born: 1971
Born: February 3
Died: 1999
Died: February 20
Author
Educator
Playwright
Writer
Brentwood
Essex
Sarah Marie Kane
Poetry
Wants
Share
Common
Great
Storytellers
Something
Storyteller
Poets
Poet

More quotes by Sarah Kay

Image
Poetry is like a puzzle-solving strategy for me. I like to poem my way through tricky questions and ideas. That's about the only consistent thread through my poem-creation process.
Sarah Kay
Image
Every moment I choose to write about is one I have deemed important enough to dwell inside of and share with others. I am holding this moment up to the light and saying, Wow, will you look at that?
Sarah Kay
Image
You are not made of metaphors, Not apologies, not excuses.
Sarah Kay
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
One of my highest priorities as an educator is to be as inclusive as possible.
Sarah Kay
Image
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
Image
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
Image
When words become a poem, it makes sense to me, but I don't know how to explain to someone why the words are the way they are. It's just the logic of the poem to me.
Sarah Kay
Image
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
Image
There are parts of me I only recognize from photographs.
Sarah Kay
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
It's really hard for me to remember all of the places that I've been but I can remember all of the delicious meals that I've ever eaten. I love traveling by way or stomach...and finding quiet time.
Sarah Kay
Image
My self-confidence can be measured out in teaspoons mixed into my poetry, and it still always tastes funny in my mouth.
Sarah Kay
Image
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
Image
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