What I Would Like To

I Myself Hate That Old Hemingwayesque Paradigm Of The Writer As Prizefighter And I Have Tried Hard To Create An Alternate One For Myself. When Anne Sexton Admonished Me, "we Are All Writing God's Poem," I Took It To Mean There Should Be No Competition Between Writers Because We Are All Involved In A Common Project, A Common Prayer. But To Gore's And Norman's Generation, Particularly Those Male Writers Who Served In The Second World War, The Prizefighter Paradigm Remains.

The Problem With Feminism In The Second Wave Was That We Fought So Much Among Ourselves, And I Think We Did So Much Damage To The Movement... And I Think The Next Wave, The Third Wave, Is Women Mentoring Younger Women And Women Helping Younger Women To Enter The Political Process And The Writing World.

And What If I Don't Want Forgiveness?

We Were Not Human Beings Going Through Spiritual Experiences; We Were Spiritual Beings Going Through Human Experiences, In Order To Grow.

You Must Have A Certain Amount Of Maturity To Be A Poet. Seldom Do Sixteen-year-olds Know Themselves Well Enough.