To Work And Suffer Is To Be

I Think Of Poetry As Something Out There In The World And Within Each Of Us. I Don't Mean That Everyone Can Write Poetry - It's An Art, A Craft, It Requires Enormous Commitment Like Any Art. But There's A Core Of Desire In Each Of Us And Poetry Goes To And Comes From That Core. It's The Social, Economic, Institutional Gap That Makes It Difficult.

Art, Whose Honesty Must Work Through Artifice, Cannot Avoid Cheating Truth.

The Kind Of Poetry That Interests Me Is Intellectual And Moral And Political And Sexual And Sensual - All Of That Fermenting Together. It Can Speak To People Who Have Themselves Felt Like Monsters And Say: You Are Not Alone, This Is Not Monstrous. It Can Disturb And Enrapture.

Responsibility To Yourself Means Refusing To Let Others Do Your Thinking, Talking, And Naming For You; It Means Learning To Respect And Use Your Own Brains And Instincts; Hence, Grappling With Hard Work.

Language Is Power... Language Can Be Used As A Means Of Changing Reality.