Making Art In America Is About Saving

I Do Believe That A Poem Needs To Remind The Reader Of His Or Her Own Humanity, Of What They Are, Of What They're Capable Of. Awaken Them, In A Sense, To The Fact That There's A World In Front Of Their Eyes, That They Have A Body, They're Going To Die, The Sky Is Beautiful, It's Fun To Be In A Grassy Field When The Sun Is Shining—those Kinds Of Things.

Here In The United States, We Speak With Reverence Of Authentic Experience. We Write Poems About Our Daddies Taking Us Fishing And Breaking Our Hearts By Making Us Throw The Little Fish Back Into The River. We Even Tell The Reader The Kind Of Car We Were Driving, The Year And The Model, To Give The Impression That It’s All True. It’s Because We Think Of Ourselves As Journalists Of A Kind. Like Them, We’ll Go Anywhere For A Story. Don’t Believe A Word Of It. As Any Poet Can Tell You, One Often Sees Better With Eyes Closed Than With Eyes Wide Open.

I Slept Little, Read A Lot, And Fell In Love Frequently.

I'm Not A Stickler For Truth. To Me, Lying In Poetry Is Much More Fun. I'm Against Lying In Life, In Principle, In Any Other Activity Except Poetry.

Making Art In America Is About Saving One's Soul.