"Then I discovered I loved writing poetry more than fiction"
About this Quote
There is a quiet plot twist baked into Murray's line: the big discovery is not talent, or even ambition, but appetite. "Then I discovered" frames the moment like an earned revelation rather than a lifestyle choice. It implies he arrived at poetry by doing the work, not by adopting the identity. That matters in a culture where "poet" can sound like a costume and "fiction writer" like a job description.
The sentence also smuggles in a demotion of fiction without taking a swing at it. "More than" is polite, but decisive. It suggests that fiction was the expected route (or at least the more socially legible one), while poetry was the medium that actually fit his nervous system: the compression, the music, the permission to be associative instead of explanatory. It's a line about artistic allegiance, but also about craft. Fiction often rewards stamina and architecture; poetry rewards attention and risk. Loving one "more" can be less about genre snobbery than about which kind of discipline feels like freedom.
The subtext is a small rebellion against market logic. Fiction is the form people are taught to treat as the "serious" vehicle for narrative, status, and readership. To admit you love poetry more is to choose intensity over scale, to prefer the sentence as event rather than as vehicle. The intent reads like self-reporting, but it doubles as a manifesto: the work will follow the form that gives him the highest voltage, even if it shrinks the audience and complicates the career.
The sentence also smuggles in a demotion of fiction without taking a swing at it. "More than" is polite, but decisive. It suggests that fiction was the expected route (or at least the more socially legible one), while poetry was the medium that actually fit his nervous system: the compression, the music, the permission to be associative instead of explanatory. It's a line about artistic allegiance, but also about craft. Fiction often rewards stamina and architecture; poetry rewards attention and risk. Loving one "more" can be less about genre snobbery than about which kind of discipline feels like freedom.
The subtext is a small rebellion against market logic. Fiction is the form people are taught to treat as the "serious" vehicle for narrative, status, and readership. To admit you love poetry more is to choose intensity over scale, to prefer the sentence as event rather than as vehicle. The intent reads like self-reporting, but it doubles as a manifesto: the work will follow the form that gives him the highest voltage, even if it shrinks the audience and complicates the career.
Quote Details
| Topic | Poetry |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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