Being a poet is like having an invisible partner. It isn't easy. But you can't live without it either. Talent is only 10 per cent. The rest is obsession. Selima Hill More Quotes by Selima Hill More Quotes From Selima Hill The very things I used to be told off for - daydreaming, exaggerating, making mistakes, wild guessing, contradicting, spying, being obsessive, being reckless - for these, suddenly, I am being praised. Selima Hill guessing mistake success There's the space that you soar into, the space that you sometimes break through to, and hang in. A sort of gasp or gap. Selima Hill break-through gaps space I'm not so sure that the value of art is all it is cracked up to be. Selima Hill art-is cracked art I step naked into the shower of truth - whole-hearted, bloody-minded, utterly selfish, no longer even pretending to enjoy or understand anything. Selima Hill naked selfish truth Poetry is a big space and I love it. Selima Hill bigs space poetry-is I like to think that I'm giving a voice to the silenced. Selima Hill voice giving thinking When I was first published it was like having people rushing in coming to find out where I was hiding. Scary! Selima Hill rushing scary people All I do and say and think 'as a poet' is much truer and more intimate than anything I say face to face. Selima Hill poetry faces thinking I feel much safer faced with a blank sheet of paper than I do with a real person. Selima Hill insecurity real paper If I knew how to say it directly, I would not need to write poetry. I would just talk to people and be happy. Selima Hill communication writing people An audience sabotages my freedom, devastates my innocence, corrupts my integrity, inhibits my great joy - and of course gives me further to fall. Selima Hill integrity giving fall What am I writing for anyway? Is it like dreaming? Is it a benevolent process? Something that moves the past forward? And what about those people who say all you get from looking at the past is a stiff neck? Selima Hill dream writing moving
