Allen's [Gisberg] loyalty to his friends was extraordinary. And as he was dying he was calling people: "What can I do for you before I die? Do you need money? What can I do?".

The beat literary movement is strong because of those very challenging and individual relationships and styles and contention and so on. So I just feel blessed by this kind of opportunity that came from it. It was a kind of seed.

When students are first at the Kerouac School we harp on Gertrude Stein's very basic poetic insistence that words are things . Not to invalidate your experience or all the great feelings you have, I tell them. Although poetry may be good for you, it's not therapy. You're making something with words which are visceral, muscular, active, not just markers of how you feel. And we have classes studying William Blake, Ezra Pound, Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Stein.

Literal thousands of Americans taking to the road and getting into that green automobile and just going. At the same time there is real incredible work [of art] that comes out of it. Never forget that.

One has to be cautious and respectful of the power of the "substance" guides. I don't advocate imbibing the "little saint children," as Maria Sabina calls the magic mushrooms, or anything else for everyone. I find that certain substances reconnect me to a primal context of purpose that goes beyond identity and ownership. The writing-when I've worked it this way-is the kind of information you take back from dreams. Or it's hypnotic writing rather than getting off on some sort of pleasure trip or intellectual trip.

The music is notated first, the text follows. I might have to wait until the right kind of text or form arises. I often see the poems as “scores.”

I think Visions of Cody is the most radical book in terms of poetic stretch and the way Jack Kerouac is able to incorporate documentation and incorporate the live tape recording of Neal and so on.