Bruce Smith is a tender master of music, and beautiful lines, and complex thoughts, and fascinating wild personal and cultural references.

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.

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.

Men aren't called pricks, but women are called cunts.

There are hundreds of prisons - sexual, political, cultural. But being a prisoner also gives you impetus.

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.

The artist looks for a subject. You know, a lot of new poets don't seem to have a subject. I don't totally understand that.