I always had good recognition from the Southern writers, but the publishers never took any notice of that.
Category Archive: 1918
The residue of religion in my work appears as a modified transcendentalism, and the positivist scientific side of my thought appears as concreteness and realism. The effort to reconcile the two is at the core of all my poetry.
There is no longer a way out of our present situation except by forging a road toward our objective, violently and by force, over a sea of blood and under a horizon blazing with fire.
Things were so bad we ate rabbits that neighbours had run over and gave to us because they knew we were broke.
It was the enchantment of spoken verse that led me to write for children.
Ideology has very little to do with ‘consciousness’ – it is profoundly unconscious.
What was taken by force, can only be restored by force.
I have published so many books in so many years. I can’t complain about any lack of attention. But I’ve never been placed as a Southern writer, which I really am. So I was happy finally to be published by someone in the South.
As any parent, teacher, or librarian knows, there is no richer experience than to see children’s faces light up at the suspense of a new tale or the surprise of a new poem. The uninhibited joy with which they listen is surely akin to that of adult audiences of old around campfire and hearth.
I have felt at times with groups of children that I was really being what every poet would like to be – a bard in the old sense.