My Temperament Is Not Geared To That

Back Then, I Couldn't Have Left A Poem A Year And Gone Back To It.

I Still Believe In This Country, That It Can Fulfill The Destiny Blake And Whitman Envisioned. I Still Believe In American Poetry.

My Earliest Poems Were A Way Of Talking To Somebody. I Suppose To Myself.

Now I Think Poetry Will Save Nothing From Oblivion, But I Keep Writing About The Ordinary Because For Me It's The Home Of The Extraordinary, The Only Home.

For Sure I Once Thought Of Myself As The Poet Who Would Save The Ordinary From Oblivion.