As Humans We Look At Things And

I Was At A Benefit For Some Imprisoned Students In The '60s At San Francisco State, And There Were Lots Of Poets Reading For The Benefit: One Was Elizabeth Bishop.

I Had Assumed That I Would Age With All My Friends Growing Old Around Me, Dying Off Very Gradually One By One. And Here Was A Plague That Cut Them Off So Early.

How Sociable The Garden Was. We Ate And Talked In Given Light. The Children Put Their Toys To Grass All The Warm Wakeful August Night.

I'm Not Sure I Had Ever Written A Fan Letter Before To A Poet I Had Not Met, But That's What I Did When I Read Two Poems By Gregory Woods ... I Admired Them Especially For Their Technical Virtuosity, In That It Was Technique Completely Used, Never For The Sake Of Cleverness But As A Component Of Feeling ... What An Enviable Talent Gregory Woods Has

I Admired What My Students Were Writing, But I Think Their Improvement Doesn't Directly Result From Me But From Being In A Class, Being With Each Other.