By All Means Break The Rules, And

I Think Of Something Quite Different From A Snapshot. I Know Of A Lot Of Poems, Some Very Fine Ones, That Are Like Snapshots, But I'm More Interested In Poetry That Is Like An Endless Film, Long Stories, Things That Weave Together Many Different Strands, Like A Big Piece Of Cloth, Not Like A Photograph.

It Isn't So Unusual For Poems To Situate Themselves Out Of Doors - Though They May, At The Same Time, Be Set In An Interior World: Not Inside The House But Inside The Mind And Body Of Writer And Reader.

In The Native Literatures Of North America There Aren't Any Novels. Instead, The Major Genre Is Myth. And Myths Are Stories That Are Fundamentally About The World, Not About Human Individuals. A Myth Needn't Include Any Humans At All. If It Does Include Them, They're Usually Minor Characters - Imaginary Humans Sent Out Like Scouts To Report Back On What's Happening In The Mythworld, But Not Central Participants In The Action.

Poetry, I'm Often Told, Is Something Made Of Words. I Think It Really Goes The Other Way Around: Words Are Made Of Poetry.

To Design Things Means To Interfere With Things: To Think Of How They Might Be And To Alter How They Are. Design Is To Making As Writing Is To Speech: It Is An Ordinary Physical Activity Pushed To A Conscious Edge. That Interference With The Given World Can Still Be Founded On Admiration. Where It Is Not, What Is The Point Of Designing At All?