"'I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul'-that awakened an understanding in me that life was not always going to be the way it was."
"'I like what metaphors set off in your mind,' she said. 'I like what poetry plays with.'"
"'I do like green,' she noted, wearing green slacks, a green turtleneck, and a green cardigan, with chunky metallic necklaces."
Ellen Burstyn, at ninety-three, has an 'inner library' of poetry that she has memorized over the years. Surrounded by books and meditative music in her Upper West Side apartment, she showcases her writing room where she penned her new book, 'Poetry Says It Better.' This work revisits her life through beloved verses. Burstyn recalls the impact of William Ernest Henley's poem 'Invictus' during her high school years, which helped her understand life's challenges amid a difficult home life marked by physical punishment.
Read at The New Yorker
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