A Moment Of Something Between Acceptance And

I Wrote Poetry For Seven Or Eight Years, Maybe Longer, Before I Could Say I Was A Poet. If People Asked, I'd Say I Wrote Poetry; I Wouldn't Go Further. I Was In My Mid- To Late-thirties Before I Felt That I Was A Poet, Which I Think Meant That I Had Begun To Embody My Poems In Some Way. I Wasn't Just A Writer Of Them. Hard To Say What, As A Poet, My Place In The World Is. Some Place Probably Between Recognition And Neglect.

If The Motive Of Writing Is For Some People A Kind Of Exercise In Dirty Laundry, That's One Thing. I've Always Thought Of My Poems As Meant To Be Overheard, As I Think All Of These Poems Are. It Seems To Me If You Get Experience Right, Even Your Most Painful Or Humiliating Experiences - If You Get Those Experiences Right For Yourself And Make Discoveries As You Go Along And Find For Them Some Formal Glue - They Will Be Poems For Others.

Originality, Of Course, Is What Occurs When Something New Arises Out Of What's Already Been Done.

There Are Always The Simple Events Of Your Life That You Might Try To Convert Into Legend.

The World Is Always Somewhat Vicious. I Take That As A Given, But At Various Times In Various Circumstances That Fact Will Be No More Than A Shadow Or An Echo Behind Some Poem. Other Times It Will Be More Manifest. I Try To Write Myself Into Articulations Of Half-felt, Half-known Feelings, Without Program. I'm Always Working Toward Getting My World And, Hopefully, The World Outside Of Me Into A Version That Makes Sense Of It. Viciousness Requires The Same Precision As Love Does.