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�I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or press an ear against its hive. I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his away out, or walk inside the poems room and feel the walls for a light switch. I want them to water-ski across the surface of a poem waving at the author�s name on the shore. But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means.� - Introduction to Poetry �Much of what is said here must be said twice, a reminder that no one takes an immediate interest in the pain of others. Nobody will listen, it would seem, if you simply admit your baby left you early this morning she didn�t even stop to say good-bye. But if you sing it again with the help of the band which will now lift you to a higher, more ardent and beseeching key, people will not only listen; they will shift to the sympathetic edges of their chairs, moved to such acute anticipation by the chord and the delay that follows, they will not be able to sleep unless you release with one finger a scream from the throat of your guitar and turn your head back to the microphone to let them know you�re a hard-hearted man but the woman�s sure going to make you cry.� - The Blues �The European love lyric is flourishing with every tremor of my voice, yet a friend has to tap my shoulder to tell me she has not caught a word...� - Plight of the Troubadour �It seems only yesterday I used to believe there was nothing under my skin but light. If you cut me I would shine. But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life, I skin my knees. I bleed.� - On Turning Ten �If there is only enough time in the final minutes of the twentieth century for one last dance I would like to be dancing it slowly with you.� - Dancing Toward Bethlehem |