Poetry, I'm Often Told, Is Something Made

Every Native North American Text I've Ever Grappled With Has Taught Me Something Important About How To Live On The Continent Where I Was Born.

By All Means Break The Rules, And Break Them Beautifully, Deliberately And Well.

The Claim That Myth Is Always A Narrative Spin-off Of Ritual; The Claim That Myth Is The Projection Of Human Anxieties Onto A Cosmological Scrim; The Claim That Myths Are Invented To Give Sanction To Human Predilections And Institutions... These Are Ways Of Trivializing A Mode Of Thought That Has Served Humanity Well For A Very Long Time.

To Design Things Means To Interfere With Things: To Think Of How They Might Be And To Alter How They Are. Design Is To Making As Writing Is To Speech: It Is An Ordinary Physical Activity Pushed To A Conscious Edge. That Interference With The Given World Can Still Be Founded On Admiration. Where It Is Not, What Is The Point Of Designing At All?

My Own View Is That Violence Is A Part Of Classical Haida Literature - And Of Every Mythology Everywhere, So Far As I Can Tell - Because It's Part Of Life Itself. In The World Of The Hamburger Stand And The Supermarket, Or The Vegan Café And The Ashram, You Might Try To Tell Yourself It's Possible To Be Nonviolent. In A Hunting And Gathering Society, Violence Is More Difficult To Hide.