Poetry, When It Takes Sides,

As I Started Reading About It, I Saw That At The Beginning Of The 19th Century, Outside Of New England - Which Was An Unusually Literate Place - Practically No One Could Read Or Write. And Even In New England, The Overall Rate Was Only About 60 Percent. That Still Means Four Out Of 10 People Couldn't Put Their Name To A Will.

Such Tenderness, Those Afternoons And Evenings, Saying Blackberry, Blackberry, Blackberry.

[cesar] Vallejo Was At Least Metaphorically Killed By Fascist Forces, In The Sense That He Wore Himself Out Raising Funds For The Republicans In The Spanish Civil War And Got Sick And Died.

My First Book Was Published When I Was Thirty-two, So I Think It Was Basically Finished When I Was Thirty Or Thirty-one. And So Then You Think, "well, What Have You Failed To Do?" And My Answer To Myself Was Almost Everything.

Prose Gets Divided Up Into Fiction And Nonfiction And Short Fiction And Long Fiction And Autobiographical Nonfiction And So On. Poetry Can Do Any Of Those Things Except With The Added Definition Of Intensified Formal Pressure.