I think my work has to do with a sense that we are attempting, all the time, to create a logical, rational path through the day. To the left and right there are an amazing set of distractions that we usually can't afford to follow. But the poet is willing to stop anywhere. . . . And it's that willingness to slow down and examine the mysterious bits of fluff in our lives that is the poet's interest. |
I want my mind to be a sail, susceptible to any breeze that might be blowing across the lake of consciousness. |
I want to remove my hat, close my eyes, and feel the sun, warm and intermittent, on my face. |
I would go into the kitchen for coffee and on the way back to the page, curled in its roller, I would light one up and feel its dry rush mix with the dark taste of coffee. |
I would rather see words out on their own, away from their families and the warehouse of Roget wandering the world where they sometimes fall in love with a completely different word. |
I'm not dismayed that poetry's appeal is limited in scope. That's why we have National Poetry Month. It's a sign of its neglect, which isn't necessarily a negative thing. It's not like we have National TV Month. |
If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song, / May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear. |
In a while, one of us will go up to bed and the other one will follow. Then we will slip below the surface of the night into miles of water, drifting down and down to the dark, soundless bottom until the weight of dreams pulls us lower still. |
In hollow murmurs died away. |
In numbers warmly pure and sweetly strong. |
In unsettled times like these, when world cultures, countries and religions are facing off in violent confrontations, we could benefit from the reminder that storytelling is common to all civilizations. Whether in the form of a sprawling epic or a pointed ballad, the story is our most ancient method of making sense out of experience and of preserving the past. |
It means treasury, but it is just a place where words congregate with their relatives, a big park where hundreds of family reunions are always being held. |
It seems only yesterday I used to believe there was nothing under my skin but light. If you cut me, I would shine. But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life, I skin my knees. I bleed. |
My pen moves along the page like the snout of a strange animal shaped like a human arm and dressed in the sleeve of a loose green sweater. |
Not to say that authors are all such sourpusses, but you meet the author in the best possible way, on the written page. I am at my best there, more patient, more thoughtful. |