Even the art of quoting is a conservative art most of the time, in order to propel the same ideas and the same self-congratulatory importance.

I push back against a deeply-entrenched tendency in American culture to label quickly and no longer even examine the labels that were initially stamped on a person. I don't have a problem with any of my "hyphenated" biography - I don't have any problem with that at all. The world would be a better place if our thread of hyphenation were truly embraced beyond mere naming and category.

What I'm trying to say is: it gets boring when nothing meaningful is discussed about it. It's the same thing when a woman poet writes about suffering - it's a "woman's tendency to depression and grief." It's not a human, universal tackling of something that exists in all of us. It's suddenly a "woman issue."

Even the art of quoting is a conservative art most of the time, in order to propel the same ideas and the same self-congratulatory importance.

For me, poetry is a form of activism. And that word enables the labelers, and also gives them a rash.

I don't think art is in danger of dissolution or disappearance, and we don't trust enough in its ability and power to create critical consciousness as much as we think we do.

The more money you make, the more the culture already attracts you to serve it, with an aura of glitter and power, to reproduce it in even stronger ways. And you have to resist that so much if any meaningful artistic integrity is to be had.