There's Very Little Solid Research

In California In The Early Spring, There Are Pale Yellow Mornings, When The Mist Burns Slowly Into Day, The Air Stings Like Autumn, Clarifies Like Pain - Well, I Have Dreamed This Coast Myself.

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.

We Don't Know Our Own Story.

There Isn't A River Or Creek In The Country - Or There Are Very Few - That Doesn't Have Some Small Group Of People Working On A Restoration Or Creek Cleanup Project. Let Me Give You One Example That's A Great Metaphor: In Washington, D.c., There Is A Group Called The Anacostia Watershed Society. Two Rivers Converge And Define Washington - One Which Everybody Knows About, The Potomac, And The Anacostia, Which They Don't. The Anacostia Is One Of The Most Polluted Urban Rivers In The Country.

It's The Same With This Idea Of A Literate Public, And Also Of A Democracy In Which People Have Access To And Really Read The Best Books. It Turns Out That Even When You Create This Kind Of Environment, Maybe Only 10 Percent Of The People Want To Read Those Books.