If You're Too Open-minded; Your Brains Will

T.s. Eliot's Influence Was Enormous On My Generation. Much More Than Ezra Pound. I Actually Had To Put T.s. Eliot Books Out Of The House Because My Poetry Was So Influenced. Everything I Wrote Sounded Like Eliot.

To Say One Is Revolutionary Is A Little Like Saying One Is A Zen Buddhist - If You Say You Are, You Probably Aren't.

See It Was Like This When We Waltz Into This Place. A Couple Of Papish Cats Is Doing An Aztec Two-step And I Says Dad Let's Cut But Then This Dame Comes Up Behind Me See And Says You And Me Could Really Exist Wow I Says Only The Next Day She Has Bad Teeth And Really Hates Poetry.

Southern California, Where The American Dream Came Too True.

I Certainly Was Surprised To Be Named Poet Laureate Of This Far-out City On The Left Side Of The World, And I Gratefully Accept, For As I Told The Mayor, "how Could I Refuse?" I'd Rather Be Poet Laureate Of San Francisco Than Anywhere Because This City Has Always Been A Poetic Center, A Frontier For Free Poetic Life, With Perhaps More Poets And More Poetry Readers Than Any City In The World.