The tougher the form the easier it is for me to handle the poem, because the form gives permission to be very gut honest about feelings.

To write about the monstrous sense of alienation the poet feels in this culture of polarized hatreds is a way of staying sane. With the poem, I reach out to an audience equally at odds with official policy, and I celebrate our mutual humanness in an inhuman world.

One way of ending the poem is to turn it back on itself, like a serpent with its tail in its mouth.

I would not recommend poetry as a career. In the first place, it's impossible in this time and place - in this culture - to make poetry a career. The writing of poetry is one thing. It's an obsession, the scratching of a divine itch, and has nothing to do with money. You can, however, make a career out of being a poet by teaching, traveling around, and giving lectures. It's a thin living at best.

The tougher the form the easier it is for me to handle the poem, because the form gives permission to be very gut honest about feelings.

God serves the choosy. They know what to want.

Can it be I am the only Jew residing in Danville, Kentuchy, looking for matzoh in the Safeway and the A & P?