To think of the myriad ways that we live is to think of the ways that we die: Delinquent in our brains, in debt-- If we settle, then, our due account and walk through the forest, Will we finally be free?
Katy LedererWhat separates the professionally successful ... from all the rest is their ability to stay steady, to have stamina. It is one thing to write a good sentence, another to write a good book.
Katy LedererToday, from the bridge, the East River is sparkling. The money is swirling around the tall buildings like tides or like tithes, And I wonder, does anyone swim in this river, I wonder, does anyone pray?
Katy LedererThere is, in the heart, the hard-rendering profit. As if we were plucking the leaves from the trees.
Katy LedererIt should be everyone's right in a capitalist system to have some way to take advantage of compound interest.
Katy LedererI do think most poets are in denial about what the real taboos in writing are--the real boundaries.
Katy LedererThe ghosts of Rilke and Wordsworth--along with the 300+ MFA programs, which now seem to employ all Living Poets--have misled the American public egregiously into thinking that poets are morally pure and/or useless.
Katy LedererI remember when I was writing my memoir and I was worried about what other people would think when they read it, and my mother, who can be this incredibly wise person, said that it really didn't matter because strangers who read it would never meet me anyway, and people I knew were aware of my secrets.
Katy LedererI do not play the instrument In longing but in quest Not to be undertaken Not to be lost In a forest of bliss.
Katy LedererWhen I moved to New York, the reputation just followed me, and I am regularly invited to play in home games, by writers in particular, though finance folk also invite me on occasion.
Katy LedererI'm more interested in the writing than in the content per se (good writing can be about wallpaper and I'll devour it).
Katy LedererIt is bizarre that some people can't understand how a serious poet could work at a finance firm. Goethe was a bureaucrat. Eliot worked as a banker.
Katy Lederer