I've spent hundreds of hours working over words, and part of me, a large part of me, has a desire to do something else.

Maybe being an artist is a kind of detachment. You're in the cave, you're isolated, you're apart from everything and it's there you can find out what you believe in, or what is - what is the nature of being, as you see it.

I was ruined before I got started. I say ruined, but I could say blessed; I was too far gone to believe in it. And I'm shocked how generation after generation repeats the behavior.

Political means so many things. We are political willy-nilly. Political poetry is an easy invitation to disaster. But then so is love poetry. But we are a little more patient with bad love poetry.

I've been active in a minor way compared to professional activists. I was a labor leader. I led two labor strikes. I've manipulated boards. I've led marches. I've done many things.

Attachment has to do with suffering, so it's really close to Buddhism, because Buddhism wants to relieve you from suffering; you're supposed to escape from suffering.

You could be attached to merely a description of a plant or a flower. Or a narrative of an event. Or rage at injustice. Isaiah and the other Hebrew prophets, in their rage, were being altogether attached - not at all detached, although as I think of the word "detachment," I also think of a sheet of paper, loose from its notebook, fluttering around somewhere in the wind trying to find its home again.