It's much easier to consume the visual image than to read something.

Western Civilization has been in a state of decline since the Edwardian age, say 1910. That was the height of Greco-Roman European civilization. Then there was the First World War. That was the beginning of the end. That civilization has been in a decline ever since. But from the American triumphalist point of view our wonderful electronic revolution is really the forefront of an ongoing wonderful civilization.

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations.

A lot of manuscripts that come in, you wonder by what outrageous fantasy the author believes that this should be pressed into print.

In Plato's republic, poets were considered subversive, a danger to the republic. I kind of relish that role. So I see my present role as a gadfly, to use my soapbox to promote my various ideas and obsesions.

If you're too open-minded; your brains will fall out.

I'm reading a book about Romaine Brooks, a wonderful painter from early in the last century.