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.

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.

Sometimes a person thinks he's attached to one thing and he's really attached to something else.

I have left out what I don't remember or don't know. Temperament, fear, shyness, obedience, kindness.

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 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.

Oppressed cultures often envy those which are not, or oppressed individuals do, and sometimes those which - and who - are not envy those which - who - are.