All Good Poems Are Victories Over Something.

Originality, Of Course, Is What Occurs When Something New Arises Out Of What's Already Been Done.

Isn't There A Curious Elegance In How One Moment Passes Into Another?

I Wrote Poetry For Seven Or Eight Years, Maybe Longer, Before I Could Say I Was A Poet. If People Asked, I'd Say I Wrote Poetry; I Wouldn't Go Further. I Was In My Mid- To Late-thirties Before I Felt That I Was A Poet, Which I Think Meant That I Had Begun To Embody My Poems In Some Way. I Wasn't Just A Writer Of Them. Hard To Say What, As A Poet, My Place In The World Is. Some Place Probably Between Recognition And Neglect.

Altruism Is For Those Who Can't Endure Their Desires. There's A World As Ambiguous As A Moan, A Pleasure Moan Our Earnest Neighbors Might Think A Crime. It's Where We Could Live. I'll Say I Love You, Which Will Lead, Of Course, To Disappointment, But Those Words Unsaid Poison Every Next Moment. I Will Try To Disappoint You Better Than Anyone Else Has. --mon Semblable

A Good Many Of My Poems Over The Years Have Alluded To Or Taken On The Political. Stevens Has A Line In One Of His Essays: "reality Exerts Pressure On The Imagination." Inevitably What Is Omnipresent In The Culture Exerts Its Pressure On Our Imaginations To Respond To It, Even If Indirectly. But In This Case The Backdrop Of 9/11, Coincident With The Breakup Of A Marriage, The Finding Of New Love, Some Kind Of Personal Cataclysm... All Of Those Were Forces Informing The Poems In Some Way.