I Don't Know How To Sit Outside

When I First Started Teaching At Berkeley In 1958, I Could Not Announce That I Was Gay To Anybody, Though Probably Quite A Few Of My Fellow Teachers Knew.

We Learned In The University To Consider Wordsworth And Keats As Romantics. They Were Only A Generation Apart, But Wordsworth Didn't Even Read Keats's Book When He Gave Him A Copy.

It Was Difficult Being A Teacher And Out Of The Closet In The '50s. By The Time I Retired, The English Department Was Proud Of Having A Gay Poet Of A Certain Minor Fame. It Was A Very Satisfactory Change!

As Humans We Look At Things And Think About What We've Looked At. We Treasure It In A Kind Of Private Art Gallery.

I Admired What My Students Were Writing, But I Think Their Improvement Doesn't Directly Result From Me But From Being In A Class, Being With Each Other.