The Library Is An Arena

Poetry Is Language At Its Most Distilled And Most Powerful.

If I Begin Writing A Poem That Means I'm Intrigued In Some Way By Whatever It's About And That If I'm Not Trying To Find Something New And Pushing The Envelope In The Poem I Can't Expect My Reader To Be Particularly Excited About It Either.

It's The Combination Of The Intimate And The Public That I Find So Exciting About Being Poet Laureate.

People Write Me From All Over The Country, Asking Me, And Sometimes Even Telling Me, What They Think A Poet Laureate Should Do. I Found That Immensely Valuable.

What Is Ironic Is That Allen Ginsberg's Importance Was In Its Twilight For So Many Years That It Took His Death To Bring It To The Front Page. He Electrified An Entire World!