American poet (1972- )
I thought that you had changed me,
but it was just a trick. You sawing
back and forth above my chest till
I was cut in half, dark magician.
KATY LEDERER
"Dark Ballad"
It should be everyone's right in a capitalist system to have some way to take advantage of compound interest.
KATY LEDERER
"Portrait of the Artist as a Young Capitalist", Gelf Magazine, January 19, 2009
Like a kettle, a lever, a lathe
I have used you.
KATY LEDERER
"The Unseduced"
The cardinal sin in poker, worse than playing bad cards, worse even than figuring your odds correctly, is becoming emotionally involved.
KATY LEDERER
A Girlhood Among Gamblers
It 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
"Portrait of the Artist as a Young Capitalist", Gelf Magazine, January 19, 2009
What 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 LEDERER
interview, Identity Theory, February 12, 2005
Today, 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 LEDERER
"The Flower of Life"
Both writing and poker function as economies of status and prestige, and both require a survivalist's iron will.
KATY LEDERER
interview, Identity Theory, February 12, 2005
We live in a capitalist system; anyone who believes they are above this system or purer than this system, even while shopping at the cute organic market across the street or taking a hiking vacation to Guatemala, is certifiable.
KATY LEDERER
"Portrait of the Artist as a Young Capitalist", Gelf Magazine, January 19, 2009
The 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 LEDERER
"Portrait of the Artist as a Young Capitalist", Gelf Magazine, January 19, 2009
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 LEDERER
"If We Settle, Then, Our Due Account"
I do not play the instrument
In longing but in quest
Not to be undertaken
Not to be lost
In a forest of bliss.
KATY LEDERER
"Degeneration"
There is, in the heart, the hard-rendering profit.
As if we were plucking the leaves from the trees.
KATY LEDERER
"The Heaven-Sent Leaf"
Only about thirty poker players I can think of make serious money year in and year out playing poker. The rest make a killing one year, lose the next, or lose all the time and lie about it.
KATY LEDERER
interview, Identity Theory, February 12, 2005
The sum of the parts equals less than the whole.
Or the howl. Or the how.
Or the hole.
KATY LEDERER
"In the Hole"
It's so dry when you read it in the papers, but, really, it's mythic.... It's Icarus, it's Faust, it's Eros and vanitas. It's Star Wars!
KATY LEDERER
attributed, "Ballad of the Bubble", The New Yorker, December 8, 2008
Poetry is God's work.
KATY LEDERER
"An Interview with Katy Lederer", Thermos Magazine, January 21, 2010
I do think most poets are in denial about what the real taboos in writing are--the real boundaries.
KATY LEDERER
"An Interview with Katy Lederer", Thermos Magazine, January 21, 2010
I think it is extremely interesting to think that, in some cases, vice might be, finally, more redemptive than virtue.
KATY LEDERER
interview, Identity Theory, February 12, 2005