In California In The Early Spring, There

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.

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.

Someone Will Always Want To Mobilize Death On A Massive Scale For Economic Domination Or Revenge. And The Task, Taken As A Task, Appeals To The Imagination. The Military Is An Engineering Profession.

The Poem That Comes Closest To Saying What I Think Is The One In Human Wishes Called "rusia En 1931." This Poem Is About [osip] Mandelstam, Who Was A Great Poet And An Anti-stalinist, And [cesar] Vallejo, Who Was A Great Poet And A Stalinist.

There Isn't A River Or Creek In The Country - Or There Are Very Few - That Doesn't Have Some Small Group Of People Working On A Restoration Or Creek Cleanup Project. Let Me Give You One Example That's A Great Metaphor: In Washington, D.c., There Is A Group Called The Anacostia Watershed Society. Two Rivers Converge And Define Washington - One Which Everybody Knows About, The Potomac, And The Anacostia, Which They Don't. The Anacostia Is One Of The Most Polluted Urban Rivers In The Country.