Take The Time To Write. You Can

All The New Thinking Is About Loss. In This It Resembles All The Old Thinking

You Begin To See That All Of These Things Are Connected: The Kind Of Cuts That Mean Less Environmental Protection Are Also The Kind Of Cuts That Mean Less Musical Education For The Schools And That Also Mean More Overcrowded Schools.

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.

When I Came Into The Job, Funding For The Humanities At The Federal Level Was Being Drastically Cut. This Was The High Tide Of The New Republican Congress.

There's A Good Deal In Pound's And Eliot's Poetry That Stood Up Even Though Their Politics Were Deplorable. Or Pound's Very Deplorable, Eliot's Kind Of Deplorable.