I like the idea of the object, the relic. And I see it as a time machine too or a device you plug into a socket that activates a sound and light show.

Our need to reimagine our world through the vibratory larynx, that's what matters. Re-awaken the world to itself. Through ideas, pictures, sounds. Hold the mirror up to "nature."

World War II synchronizes things for a lot of people. There's a kind of wakeup call.

Refined, intense, wise, stiring, immediate, subtile, all the charmed qualities gather in Dropping the Bow. These translations are precious jewels. Like the erotic moods they investigate, these versions shimmer and startle with a palpable desire to be heard, and a mystical sense of impermanence. This is a transmission of a vital, extraordinary tradition.

I think of my father born in this very small, limited situation and then coming out of that. Many people have this story.

No one begs you to be a poet or write a 1000-page poem. You have to be fueled by a drive, a conviction - a need, a necessity, a vision that is so pressing that it has no other outlet but through you. That doesn't mean that you are unconscious or in trance, but there can be moments like that.

I have students whose fathers are voting for Sarah Palin. It's wild.