Some poems are art because of their passion.

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.

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

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.

All of a sudden I understand why I like Aliki Barnstones poems so much. They remind me of the one she has studied most - shall we call her her master - Emily Dickinson. Not in the forms, not, as such, in the music, and not in the references; but in that weird intimacy, that eerie closeness, that absolute confession of soul.... In Barnstone, too, the two worlds are intensely present, and the voice moves back and forth between them. She has the rare art of distance and closeness. It gives her her fine music, her wisdom, her form. She is a fine poet.

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

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