Teaching poetry, teaching as such, is worthy - if back breaking.

The act of writing itself isn't outrageous. And the institution subtly and insidiously works on you in such a way that though you seem to have freedom you become a servant. Your main issue is to get promoted to the next thing. Or get invited to a picnic. Or get tenure. Or get laid.

Tolstoy is one of the greatest artists in history, but he finally became infused with the idea of the uselessness of art. He gave himself to his own kind of religion.

I floundered in my twenties. Though I wore a long scarf. And when I got to be thirty I got a job at Temple University in Philadelphia. I worked there for seven years, and I finally got fired, mostly for political reasons.

The cave is a dark, shadowy place. It's a place that's very close and yet distant at the same time, and it's a place of revelation and isolation. Your form, your body, your writing is your confinement.

It's a kind of liberation to break free in language, if you can break free, but it's also a confinement, because form confines you - whatever the form.

Oppressed persons, oppressed cultures, tend to be more political, obviously, as are those with a rage for justice, or the crazy messianic desire.