I Keep Coming Back To You In

There's Been Real Hostility Toward Political Poetry In The U.s., Hostility Or, At Best, Incomprehension. I'm Speaking Of Those Who Have Institutional Power Over What Gets Published, Over Grants Andprizes And Reviewing. Most Of Them, Though Not All, Arewhite And Male. But Even As American Society Is Unravelling, Becoming More Violent And Punitive, Wonderful Political Poetshave Been Emerging.

I Think About The Possibilities For Empathy, For Mutual Solidarity Among Gay Men And Lesbians, Not Simply As People Who Suffer Under Homophobia, But As People Who Are Also Extremely Creative, Active, And Have A Particular Understanding Of The Human Condition.

Courage Is Not Defined By Those Who Fought And Did Not Fall, But By Those Who Fought, Fell And Rose Again.

You Have To Give Your Art Everything You Can - I Don't Mean Only Writing, But Studying Other Poets And Poetics, Thinking, Reading What Poets Have Written Other Than Their Poetry.

A Decade Of Cutting Away Dead Flesh, Cauterizing Old Scars Ripped Open Over And Over And Still It Is Not Enough.