High and low culture come together in all Post Modern art, and American poetry is not excluded from this.

Poetry is the art of saying what you mean but disguising it.

We are authors, all of us, concerned with beginning, with making, with sources and substance.

But I am not political in the current events sense, and I have never wanted anyone to read my poetry that way.

There are rituals not structures for being a poet, drinking too much, taking too many drugs, being a lady chaser, having your nervous breakdown, being irresponsible about money.

My poems are almost all written as Diane. I don't have any problems with that, and if other women choose to identify with this, I think that's terrific.

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