Poetry Is A Man Arguing With Himself;

I Think That The Job Of Poetry, Its Political Job, Is To Refresh The Idea Of Justice, Which Is Going Dead In Us All The Time.

Where Politics Is Concerned, I Think Poets Have To Be Pragmatists, Philosophical Pragmatists.

As I Started Reading About It, I Saw That At The Beginning Of The 19th Century, Outside Of New England - Which Was An Unusually Literate Place - Practically No One Could Read Or Write. And Even In New England, The Overall Rate Was Only About 60 Percent. That Still Means Four Out Of 10 People Couldn't Put Their Name To A Will.

The Thing I Learned Is That The Work Is Getting Done By People Who Dig In And Work On A Particular Project: The People Who Spend 20 Years Sustaining A Theater For Black Teenagers In Chicago; The People Who Reintroduce Sticklebacks Into Strawberry Creek In Berkeley And Then Wait Patiently For The First Egrets To Show Up.

Nostalgia Locates Desire In The Past Where It Suffers No Active Conflict And Can Be Yearned Toward Pleasantly.