When I was younger, yes, there was a part of me - and I wrote about that bit in Among the White Moon Faces - that wanted to be a boy. I wanted to be accepted by my brothers and to be their peers.

I do want to do the entire alphabet. There's in [Walker's Alphabet] a poem called "A Life" in that grouping. I was going to change that title to "A."

When I was younger, yes, there was a part of me - and I wrote about that bit in Among the White Moon Faces - that wanted to be a boy. I wanted to be accepted by my brothers and to be their peers.

Wouldn't that be wonderful if I could do that? And that way, I could walk with the muse, rather than walk without her. The novel would write itself.

I want, I want, I want! We never grow out of it somehow. Unless we become Buddhists, maybe.

Just because suddenly you have a sabbatical doesn't mean that the writing occasion comes to you.

The poem is not a physical body. It's a textual body that has life only insofar as it can act symbolically. It cannot physically act.