One should never criticize his own work except in a fresh and hopeful mood. The self-criticism of a tired mind is suicide.
Mood
I respond to mood. I hear some phrase, or pick up a rhythm.
It’s all about the mood I’m in and the scene I’m writing. ‘Cause work controls my life, writing controls my life, performing controls my life. So I don’t listen to any music that’s not an influence on what I’m working on that day. Music is a big influence in my work and sometimes drives the energy of where I want to go.
I wrote two poems about the ’81 uprisings: ‘Di Great Insohreckshan’ and ‘Mekin Histri.’ I wrote those two poems from the perspective of those who had taken part in the Brixton riots. The tone of the poem is celebratory because I wanted to capture the mood of exhilaration felt by black people at the time.
I am still of opinion that only two topics can be of the least interest to a serious and studious mood – sex and the dead.
For style and for creating a mood of optimism and hope – Kennedy on that count is as effective as any president the country has had in its history.
The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me; my prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter.
The mood in which my book was conceived and executed, was in fact to some extent a passing one.
So it is in poetry. All we ask is that the mood recorded shall impress us as having been of the kind that exhausts the imaginative capacity; if it fails to do this the failure will announce itself either in prose or in insignificant verse.
There are good and bad times, but our mood changes more often than our fortune.