I Get Over A Hundred Letters A Day From All Over The World, From Children And Parents, And It's A Wonder I Ever Have Time To Write Books, Let Alone Speak!
You Say To Yourself, Well, This Poem Isn't Going To Be Any Good, But I'll Write It Anyway.
I Wanted To Spend All My Time Writing Poetry. But When I Had Children I Couldn't Do That Anymore.
Before I Was A Parent I Was Struck By Rilke, Who, As You Know, Didn't Go To His Daughter's Wedding Because He Was Writing A Poem That Day. That Was The Ideal For Artistic Behavior In 1950. That's The Way I Wanted To Live.
I Got About Half The Time I Wanted To Write Poetry. I Got About Half The Time I Needed To Be A Father. So There Is Something In Adulthood That Has To Do With Accepting The Half Of Things, Allowing A Renunciation Of The Other Half, Accepting Half A Basket Instead Of A Full Basket.
One Day While Studying A Yeats Poem I Decided To Write Poetry The Rest Of My Life. I Recognized That A Single Short Poem Has Room For History, Music, Psychology, Religious Thought, Mood, Occult Speculation, Character, And Events Of One's Own Life. I Still Feel Surprised That Such Various Substances Can Find Shelter And Nourishment In A Poem. A Poem In Fact May Be A Sort Of Nourishing Liquid, Such As One Uses To Keep An Amoeba Alive. If Prepared Right, A Poem Can Keep An Image Or A Thought Or Insights On History Or The Psyche Alive For Years, As Well As Our Desires And Airy Impulses.
My Feeling Is That Poetry Is Also A Healing Process, And Then When A Person Tries To Write Poetry With Depth Or Beauty, He Will Find Himself Guided Along Paths Which Will Heal Him, And This Is More Important, Actually, Than Any Of The Poetry He Writes.
I Write Songs About My Own Experiences. You Can't Lie To Yourself. You Can't Pose To Yourself.
I Don't Know How To Write Without Thinking What People Would Want. You Don't Know Whether They Want You To Be Black Or White, So You Kind Of Get A Gray, Something In The Middle.
On The Song 'dangerous,' It Feels Like A Teenager Picking Up A New Instrument And Writing Something With All Of That Naive Excitement.
