Imagination Runs Through The Places Where We

I Was Aware That A Quarter Of The Children In The Country Are Born In Poverty, And That The Condition Of Public Schools In California Was Disastrous.

I Don't Know That I Had A Sense That There Was Such A Thing As "the Poetry World" In The 1960s And Early 70s. Maybe Poets Did, But For Me As An Onlooker And Reader Of Poetry, Poetry Felt Like It Was Part Of A Larger Literary World. I Mean, Even The Phrase "the Poetry World" Reflects A Sort Of Balkanization Of American Literary And Artistic Life That Has To Some Extent Happened Since Then.

You Begin To See That All Of These Things Are Connected: The Kind Of Cuts That Mean Less Environmental Protection Are Also The Kind Of Cuts That Mean Less Musical Education For The Schools And That Also Mean More Overcrowded Schools.

Longing, We Say, Because Desire Is Full Of Endless Distances.

If You're Imaginatively Responsible To The Place You Live In, You Understand The Watershed.