“Bearing witness I think is the best of what poetry can do sometimes.”
“To me, the most interesting aspect of writing is how it captures what it’s like to be a thinking presence in the world.”
I’ll be like, “I toured with the Silver Jews and Titus Andronicus! Why didn’t anyone publish my memoir of this scene?” And then my nurse will tell me to settle down.
Mary Leader says: “A poem is a thing.” By that definition, a poet would be someone who makes things. I think any narrower definition would seem to me needlessly exclusive.
Some people write from life, others from dreams — I write from research
If you want to surpass your childhood you have to pick up Aristotle or Hui Neng and imagine being on a long walk with the speaker, with the attitude of “I will listen.”
“I’ve tried to give readers strong, vivid glimpses of [James Wright] in all the places he lived and traveled to in his sadly shortened but very full life.”
Quintan Ana Wikswo and Margo Berdeshevsky
I suspect that Evil created Hope, knowing that it would never be a successful opponent.
I think loneliness is a beautiful emotion, it respects your inner desires, and one should be thankful to have those.
My family is my writing community, the friends who’ve been there for me, my queer community. And that’s a lot of good fucking people.