A Quote by David Bowie
Don’t you love the Oxford Dictionary? When I first read it, I thought it was a really really long poem about everything.
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I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything.
I used to teach. I quote American history and I love words. I've read the dictionary I don't know how many times throughout my life. People say, "You read the dictionary?" I say, "Yes, and you can really believe it."
I had been really obsessed with Jonestown for a long time - many years - and had read everything there was to read about it, seen all the footage and the documentaries. I found it really chilling in a personal way - the question of people submitting all their personal power and agency and independent thought it the name of a group or ideology. I could not find a way to write about it directly that didn't feel too heavy.
I do read a poem almost every morning. Unless I'm really, really late, I have to get my poem in.
Galway Kinnell came out with that wonderful big, breathy, hollow voice of his and read, for the first time in public, "The Bear." That poem impressed me so much that I memorized it. I used it for years when I taught in prisons. It's a powerful extended metaphor for what the writing life is really all about. It's a uniquely powerful poem about self-transformation, and that's what we're asking, really, beyond even our objection to the war. We're asking people to look at themselves and think about what might be possible with a little self-transformation.
I work with the Oxford Dictionary databases, which sounds really boring, but they're actually fascinating as they show you how current words are being used.
I have a lot of spiritual books that I read that I really, really love - everything from the Bible to Joseph Campbell, who I love. He wrote The Hero of a Thousand Faces. It's about exploring what is heroic in you. It helps me a lot.
I love science fiction, and one of the things I love about it is that it's so very different. You can read stuff that's just fast-paced adventure, and the characters are cardboard, but who cares, because they're heroes, and we love it. And you can read stuff that's really deep character, and everything in between.
I did really well at school, and I would have loved to have gone to Oxford or Cambridge. I would have read English, and I'm really interested in politics.
Truly fine poetry must be read aloud. A good poem does not allow itself to be read in a low voice or silently. If we can read it silently, it is not a valid poem: a poem demands pronunciation. Poetry always remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art. It remembers that it was first song.
He can't even be at a casual read and not be creating the whole thing in his mind. I remember feeling very awed about how much he still seems to be so in love with it, and so dedicated to making everything really real and really spontaneous.
I would say everything should be able to come into a poem, but I can't put toothbrushes into a poem, I really can't!
I loved Married With Children. That was the job that against all odds - you know, when I first read the script, I thought, "No one will ever watch this, but I think this is so fun." So I was really happy to be involved in it. And we laughed every single day. It was the funniest 11 years. We really, really enjoyed it.
As a poet I would say everything should be able to come into a poem but I can't put toothbrushes in a poem. I really can't.
There's always an added element of a poem when it's read aloud because then you can really hear the rhythm, and the cadence, and even the pronunciation sometimes adds another layer to the poem.
It's the first line in your book. I always thought there was a lot of truth in that. Or maybe that's what my English teacher said. I can't really remember. I read it last semester." - Your parents must be so proud you can read." - They are. They bought me a pony and everything when I did a book report on Cat in the Hat.
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