I got interested in Zen when I was a teenage beatnik on the streets of San Francisco. And … - Sam Hamill

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You've got to be in a bad relationship to really understand what a great one is.

Sam Hamill

I got interested in Zen when I was a teenage beatnik on the streets of San Francisco. And it was my interest in Zen, in part, that got me into the Marine Corps, because that was a ticket to Asia. So I spent a couple of years on Okinawa and began reading and thinking about how I wanted to go about conducting my life.

Asia, Couple, Okinawa, Reading, Teenage

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The only thing we all agree on, virtually every poet in this country, is that this Administration is really frightening, and we want something done about it.

Country, Want Something, Done, Administration, Virtually

Just as I wonder whether it's going to die, the orchid blossoms and I can't explain why it moves my heart, why such pleasure comes from one small bud on a long spindly stem, one blood red gold flower opening at mid-summer, tiny, perfect in its hour.

Die, Flower, Spring, Summer, Tiny, Wonder

If only we could touch the things of this world at their center, if we could only hear tiny leaves of birch struggling toward April, then we would know.

Knowledge, Leaves, Struggle, Struggling, Touch, World

Poetry teaches us things that cannot be learned in prose, such as certain kinds of irony or the importance of the unsaid. The most important element of any poem is the part that is left unsaid. So the poetry frames the experience that lies beyond naming.

Lying, Important, Elements, Experience, Poem, Importance

Nothing will change until we demolish the "we-they" mentality. We are human, and therefore all human concerns are ours. And those concerns are personal.

Concern, Concerns, Demolish, Human, Humanity, Humans