I think it's true to say that in 1973 I could read every book of poems that was published in a year, and I did.

The Earth forgives the previous year every year.

Pound described poetry as original research in language, and just as formal experiment in poetry has to try things and has to go too far, so does experiment with writing about politics in poetry and what the politics of poetry is.

Longing, we say, because desire is full of endless distances.

When I was in high school in the '50s you were supposed to be an Elvis Presley, a James Dean, a Marlon Brando or a Kingston Trio type in a button-down shirt headed for the fraternities at Stanford or Cal.

I think that what art can do is refresh our sense of justice, wake us up to what we've taken for granted in the political realm, as in the other realms.

I think that my responsibility to my art is to try to get it right or to push the boundaries of what I'm able to do in any way.