Nowadays, What An Award Gives Is A

Behaviour That's Admired Is The Path To Power Among People Everywhere.

The Gift Of Writing Is To Be Self-forgetful... To Get A Surge Of Inner Life Or Inner Supply Or Unexpected Sense Of Empowerment, To Be Afloat, To Be Out Of Yourself.

Sink Every Impulse Like A Bolt. Secure The Bastion Of Sensation. Do Not Waver Into Language. Do Not Waver In It.

Even Though Helen Vendler Wasn't On The Harvard Faculty When I Came First In 1979, She Was A Guardian Spirit; Robert Fitzgerald Gave Me The Use Of His Study In Pusey Library. Monroe And Brenda Engel Kept Open House, Bob And Jana Kiely Made Me At Home In Adams House. Then, Too, In 1979, Frank Bidart, Whom Id Met In Dublin After The Death Of Robert Lowell He Was Over Seeing Caroline Blackwood Frank Brought Me Into His Circle Of Friends, Including Robert Pinsky And Alan Williamson.

My Teaching Was Animated By What I Was Reading And Being Excited By As A Poet.