Literary Birthday – 26 January – Susan Griffin
Happy Birthday, Susan Griffin, born 26 January 1943.
Susan Griffin Quotes
- A story is told as much by silence as by speech.
- I think artists can go to a level of vision that can often save us from a situation which seems to have no solution whatsoever.
- Each time I write, each time the authentic words break through, I am changed. The older order that I was collapses and dies. I lose control. I do not know exactly what words will appear on the page. I follow language. I follow the sound of the words, and I am surprised and transformed by what I record.
- Poetry is a good medium for revolutionary hope.
- Before a secret is told, one can often feel the weight of it in the atmosphere.
- I love that moment in writing when language falls short. There is something more there. A larger body. Even by the failure of words I begin to detect its dimensions. As I work the prose, shift the verbs, look for new adjectives, a different rhythm, syntax, something new begins to come to the surface.
- The mind can forget what the body, defined by each breath, subject to the heart beating, does not.
Susan Griffin is an award-winning American poet, writer, essayist, and playwright. She shines a light on contemporary issues, including climate change, war, colonialism, the body, democracy, and terrorism. She has written 20 books, including A Chorus of Stones, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Among her many awards and honours, she has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Northern California Book Award for non-fiction, an honorary doctorate from the Graduate Theological Union, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Source for image: Photo: Irene Young / Source for quotes
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