How We Became Human

The poet cannot be separated from place. Even placelessness becomes a place.

Poetry was not under the ownership or province of Europe or New England, though it often appeared otherwise. Something was born in that realization, given life.

Or now that the world is neither flat nor round but in the shape of a spiral, the shape of the mind of God.

in a land that had been taken from us—a land no one could own.

Half of her soul was enmeshed in the internal battle of what am I in this place of loss and heartbreak? How do I bear the weight of my soul?

his poetry taught me that becoming human was the most honorable task of poetry

myth as an archetypal reality, not as falsehood

Here is where poetry showed up, at this intersection of a glimmer of self-knowledge and the need to make art of whatever materials are at hand

Always my art took place in private places, in the dark, far from public view. Even then, it was what I wanted to do with my life, “to be an artist,” I always answered.

There is no poetry where there are no mistakes, said the next messenger. I
am a human being, I said.