I Think That The Job Of Poetry,

I Was Aware That A Quarter Of The Children In The Country Are Born In Poverty, And That The Condition Of Public Schools In California Was Disastrous.

Poetry Is A Man Arguing With Himself; Rhetoric Is A Man Arguing With Others.

When I Came Into The Job, Funding For The Humanities At The Federal Level Was Being Drastically Cut. This Was The High Tide Of The New Republican Congress.

You Only Had Widespread Literacy And Books That People Could Afford In The Middle Of The 19th Century. Did More People Read Poetry At The Turn Of The 20th Century When There Were About Fifty Million People?

As Poet Laureate, I Was Asked To Be A Spokesman For Literature. Then What I Decided Is I Am A Spokesman For This Other Imagination Of Community - Not The One Showing Up In The Market. Nobody Was Tending To The Way We're Imaginatively Connected To Each Other.