For me poems are acts re-done, and that can vibrate well into the future.

I think of my father growing up in South Jersey, the son of second-generation German immigrant glassblowers. The opportunities for him of feeling that aspiration, that yearning, get out of the small town, connect to a larger world, get yourself to New York, wanting to play the piano at every opportunity, bonding with people who were on a similar path, ending up in Provincetown, which was kind of nexus for nonconformity, and artistic dropout reality.

Idea that all the beats are wildly liberal and progressive is ridiculous. You have people thinking for themselves and having certain affinities because of their upbringing and who their family are, their own people who were close to them who fought in these wars and so on. It's complicated. But they had that ability to continue the conversation.

I think of the amazing things that were going on. So it's so rich. The doors keep opening.

When I look at my life there are these streams, these things that have continuity from the fifties to now.

We can think for ourselves and we can awaken the world to a greater consciousness.

My father was a frustrated writer. I think he wanted to write the great American novel.