Invent A New Language Anyone Can Understand.

Communism Wasn't A Word That I Thought Of When I Went To Cuba. The Original Fidelistas Were Not Communists. They Were Graduate Students At The University And Law Students. After The Fidelistas Took Over, They Went To Washington And Tried To Get Support From The U.s. Government, Which Turned Them Down. They Were In A Desperate Political And Economic Situation, So They Took The Offer From The Soviet Union. Communism Was A Matter Of Necessity.

You Can Publish A Poem You Think Is A Very Important Poem, And You Don't Hear A Word From Anyone. [...] You Can Publish A Book Of Poetry By Dropping It Off A Cliff And Waiting To Hear An Echo. Quite Often, You'll Never Hear A Thing. So Doing That, Using Older Work, Puts It In A Context, And That Sort Of Forces The Reader To Realize What Its Importance Is-if It Has Any. Everything Needs A Context. You're Not Going To Recognize A Poet Unless You Have A Context.

I Was On Television A Couple Of Years Ago And The Reporter Asked Me, "how Does It Feel Being On Mainstream Media? It's Not Often Poets Get On Mainstream Media." I Said, "well I Think You're The Dominant Media, The Dominant Culture, But You're Not The Mainstream Media. The Mainstream Media Is Still The High Culture Of Intellectuals: Writers, Readers, Editors, Librarians, Professors, Artists, Art Critics, Poets, Novelists, And People Who Think. They Are The Mainstream Culture, Even Though You May Be The Dominant Culture."

Poetry Can Change The World, Just Like Any Art Can Change The World, By Changing Consciousness. Of Course This Was The Great Slogan Of The Nineteen Sixites Hippies’ Revolution—enlarge The Area Of Consciousness, Which Quite Often Was Done By Psychedelic Means.

The Poet Like An Acrobat Climbs On Rime To A High Wire Of His Own Making.