16 Questions
- Can I create a poem that appears simultaneously spontaneous, yet inevitable?
- Repudiating is hating, yet why does it motivate writers?
- Can I think a thought whole?
- Can I write from impulse and not rules?
- Do I care more about what a line is than what a poem is?
- Why does rhythmical energy equal psychic energy?
- How can I make the line itself syntactically interesting?
- How can I make the language move; create a sense of doubleness; celebration & confrontation; rhythm of expecting?
- Why is writing abstractions frequently taught as a technical problem when it's really an ethical problem?
- Why is psychoanalysis, like poetry, is not only impossible, but also extremely difficult?
- Can I write with lyricism but also truthfulness?—lyricism alone is not what makes literature valuable.
- Why do many teachers use the Socratic method, which is about being a bully, instead of empathic questioning?
- Why is it that half the skills of a creative writer are psychological sturdiness, yet the culture demands that we specialize in pain instead?
- Can I write without fear of ghosts (parents, authority figures)?
- Can poems be written that people need, not that they praise?
- Am I courageous enough to put anything clear and unevasive down on paper or not?
