I used to stand on the corner in San Diego with poems sticking out of my hip pocket, asking people if there was a place where I could read poems. The audience is half of the poem.
Category Archive: 1948
I’ve been a very effective leader in the gay rights movement, though at times I’ve been controversial.
Let me just say: Peace to you, if you’re willing to fight for it.
I don’t want to be a passenger in my own life.
A poem records emotions and moods that lie beyond normal language, that can only be patched together and hinted at metaphorically.
I’ve always found it best to have a routine. I go to my study at the same time every day and climb into my bay window. I may not be inspired every day, but on the days I am, I need to be in place to write. If I’m not particularly inspired, I’ll revise or do research or correspondence.
In the winter, I enjoy cross-country skiing and raising orchids and amaryllises. If I could grow tropical flowers as perennials, I would, especially hibiscus and mandavilla.
I think the issue of clergy sexual abuse sparked people to look at their faith in a different way.
I cannot believe that the American people and the people they elected would use the Constitution to stifle any group’s rights.
We have responsibilities for others, not just across space but across time. We have responsibilities to people who came before us. They left us a world of institutions, ideas or possibilities for which we, in turn, owe them something. One of the things we owe them is not to squander them.