American poetry, like American painting, is always personal with an emphasis on the individuality of the poet.

So, I've never been politically correct, even before that term was available to us, and I have really identified with other people who don't want to be read as just a black poet, or just a woman poet, or just someone who represents a cause, an anti-Vietnam war poet.

American poets celebrate their bodies, very specifically, as Whitman did.

Still, language is resilient, and poetry when it is pressured simply goes underground.

The best young writers are convinced they need blurbs from famous writers before an editor will even read the first page of a manuscript. If this is true, then the editorial system that prevails today stinks. And let's start reforming it.

I do not read newspapers. I do not watch television. I am not interested in current events, although I will occasionally discuss them if other people want to discuss them.

But I don't think that poetry is a good, to use a contemporary word, venue, for current events.