To Work And Suffer Is To Be

When Someone With The Authority Of A Teacher Describes The World And You’re Not In It, There’s A Moment Of Psychic Disequilibrium, As If You Looked Into A Mirror And Saw Nothing.

You Have To Give Your Art Everything You Can - I Don't Mean Only Writing, But Studying Other Poets And Poetics, Thinking, Reading What Poets Have Written Other Than Their Poetry.

I Long To Create Something That Can't Be Used To Keep Us Passive: I Want To Write A Script About Plumbing, How Every Pipe Is Joined To Every Other.

The Decision To Feed The World Is The Real Decision. No Revolution Has Chosen It. For That Choice Requires That Women Shall Be Free.

My Children Cause Me The Most Exquisite Suffering Of Which I Have Any Experience. It Is The Suffering Of Ambivalence: The Murderous Alternation Between Bitter Resentment And Raw-edged Nerves, And Blissful Gratification And Tenderness. Sometimes I Seem To Myself, In My Feelings Toward These Tiny Guiltless Beings, A Monster Of Selfishness And Intolerance.