I could say that in the essay, as it has developed historically, success is determined by the writer's ability to express, through an individual voice, a collective experience - you are speaking individually but you are representing collectively.

I could say that in the essay, as it has developed historically, success is determined by the writer's ability to express, through an individual voice, a collective experience - you are speaking individually but you are representing collectively.

Orwell says somewhere that no one ever writes the real story of their life. The real story of a life is the story of its humiliations.

Society imposes an identity on you because of the way you look. Your struggle as a self has to do with an identity being imposed on you that you know is not your identity.

These new theories of the universe, that there are multiple universes just bubbling up constantly - it's all pretty wild.

Genres have a history and impose a historical character upon the writer. What is interesting in the poem involves a certain kind of dramatization of the self that you don't have to engage in in the essay. In fact, the essay is a more social medium than the poem.

Historically, there are hierarchies of purity. Certain aspects of poetry are very, very pure. The lyric poem can't be anything but the lyric poem.