I think the Indians have gotten to me in some ways.
One of the first things that changed because of being, I've
been in other schools besides but I keep emphasizing them
but that's not fair at all.
Cause when a poet walks into a high school you realize,
and especially to high schools where poetry hasn't been taught
for a long time and kids aren't really
up on the latest movements.
The truth of poetry has nothing to do with the subtleties
but with the how much of life you get into the poem I guess.
Just how real they sound to them and how honest
they sound to them.
So I think every poet who has been on the program
and that's about 20 people now has felt this,
and this sort of felt a desire to switch away
from intellectual angles in the poems towards something
that's readily available.
And if they want to still be intellectual enough themes
and stuff like poetry just as naturally made up
of those things, it has to be underneath in some way.
That's one dated 7/2/70 called "Fertility."
The edge is sharp with pebbles for sand
but we are young careless of those
perhaps in the mountains looking down.
I know the water, the undertow, quicksand, the water under me,
getting in too far to get out.
Each of us has seen his own death in a dream
and been wakened feeling the sinking
in the pit of the stomach.
You ask what is behind the sun?
Our alter selves I say, with their children.
I tell you, they are waiting for us.
We don't want to swim alone and naked,
we want the warmth for something else.