111 Quotes by Stephen Vincent Benét

As for what you’re calling hard luck – well, we made New England out of it. That and codfish.

Most of the time I’m not really attracted to writing that’s focused on filling and fighting it out within a well-defined container. I like work that gets out in the world and lets the world shape the poem.

I’ve been reading a lot lately about Indian captives. One woman who had been captured by the Indians and made a squaw was resentful when she was rescued because she’d found that there was a lot more work to do as the wife of a white man.

Even in hell, if a man was a man, you’d know it.

I don’t think I have ever really gotten Leopold Bloom’s interior ramblings out of my head! I am sure that voice continues to inspire the walking consciousness in my work – that is, the way I carry on an interior monologue as I walk through this city.

When my own writing needs a perk, I open Zukofsky and read from “A” – particularly sections “22” and “23.” It can be opaque, but I love the intensity.

Few people have written significant books about San Francisco. Robert Duncan was, in my opinion, often in the clouds. If he walked the streets a lot he didn’t write about as such.

Basically when I’m walking I’m not consciously writing or intending anything. In the manner I have learned from meditation practice, I let things unfold.

At first I was blogging everyday, but I don’t do that anymore. It varies; sometimes I’ll write these little essays and other times political commentaries. Other times it’ll just be new work that I’m doing.