It Would Take A Helluva Man To

All Things Being Equal, I Would Choose A Woman Over A Man In Order To Even The Balance Of Power, To Insinuate A Different Perspective Into The Process, To Give Young Women Something To Shoot For And Someone To Look Up To. But All Things Are Rarely Equal.

[after My Mother Died, I Had A Feeling That Was] Not Unlike The Homesickness That Always Filled Me For The First Few Days When I Went To Stay At My Grandparents'' House, And Even, I Was Stunned To Discover, During The First Few Months Of My Freshman Year At College. It Was Not Really The Home My Mother Had Made That I Yearned For. But I Was Sick In My Soul For That Greater Meaning Of Home That We Understand Most Purely When We Are Children, When It Is A Metaphor For All Possible Feelings Of Security, Of Safety, Of What Is Predictable, Gentle, And Good In Life.

The Issue Is Privacy. Why Is The Decision By A Woman To Sleep With A Man She Has Just Met In A Bar A Private One, And The Decision To Sleep With The Same Man For $100 Subject To Criminal Penalties?

Recently A Young Mother Asked For Advice. What, She Wanted To Know, Was She To Do With A 7-year-old Who Was Obstreperous, Outspoken, And Inconveniently Willful? "keep Her," I Replied.... The Suffragettes Refused To Be Polite In Demanding What They Wanted Or Grateful For Getting What They Deserved. Works For Me.

There Is Little Premium In Poetry In A World That Thinks Of Pound And Whitman As A Weight And A Sampler, Not An Ezra, A Walt, A Thing Of Beauty, A Joy Forever.