If You Want To Do Things, Do

It Wasn't Until I Lived In The Countryside That I Began To Understand The Life Of The Countryside And The People In It And Trees And Water. Just Learning About Water Is An Education For A City Person.

I Don't Have Any Degrees. I Went To Hunter College One Year And New York University Another Year. It's Just On The Basis Of My Books That I've Been Hired At Any Of The Places I've Been.

I Do Lots Of Reading And Speaking At Many Universities About Literature And Also About Politics, Which Is As Much A Part Of My Life As The Literature.

Here I Am In The Garden Laughing An Old Woman With Heavy Breasts And A Nicely Mapped Face How Did This Happen Well That's Who I Wanted To Be At Last A Woman In The Old Style Sitting Stout Thighs Apart Under A Big Skirt Grandchild Sliding On Off My Lap A Pleasant Summer Perspiration That's My Old Man Across The Yard He's Talking To The Meter Reader He's Telling Him The World's Sad Story How Electricity Is Oil Or Uranium And So Forth I Tell My Grandson Run Over To Your Grandpa Ask Him To Sit Beside Me For A Minute I Am Suddenly Exhausted By My Desire To Kiss His Sweet Explaining Lips.

I Believe In A Kind Of Fidelity To Your Own Early Ideas; It's A Kind Of Antagonism In Me To Prevailing Fads.