The Library Is An Arena Of Possibility,

By Making Us Stop For A Moment, Poetry Gives Us An Opportunity To Think About Ourselves As Human Beings On This Planet And What We Mean To Each Other.

If The Poem Is So Moving That Even If You Have No Experience In That Particular Setting Be It 1920's Harlem Let's Say. You Still Are So Moved That You Can Put Yourself In That Position. That Means That The Writer Has Managed To Go Beyond The Personal And Touch The Humanity In All Of Us And It's Really A Blast To Read It Because I Realize How That This Does Hold True For The Truly Great Poems.

Everybody Who's Anybody Longs To Be A Tree.

Nothing Is Too Small. Nothing Is Too, Quote-unquote, Ordinary Or Insignificant. Those Are The Things That Make Up The Measure Of Our Days, And They're The Things That Sustain Us. And They're The Things That Certainly Can Become Worthy Of Poetry.

I Was Not Interested In Doing The Plot Of Oedipus In Blackface. I Did Wonder, What Would These People Have Been Like If They Hadn't Been In That Situation?... One Could Look At Oedipus, Or At My Character Augustus, As A Cynical Schemer Who Did Everything Because He Was Hungry For Power. But That's Just Too Easy. I'm More Interested In How Humans Can Embody Conflicting Goals And Emotions.