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ELLISON WAS HERE
I still remember sitting raptly listening to youread a story you promised would bein your next collection, Harlan, or certainlythe one after that, after all you were a writerand without writing you were a marginalcharacter in the story of a city given overto film and television and you were no actor.You were fearless, you told…
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AFLOAT
I have taken tofolding my poemsinto little paper boatsand dropping gentlyinto the riverwhere they saildownstream. Many may drownbut some mayreach the lakeor be plucked outand reador discarded. The river is,in the end,my harshestcritic.
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THOSE WHO CAN’T DO (OR TEACH)
“You know,” she said, “it is the critics, they are the real problem, all holy and self-proclaimed arbiters of taste, deciding what is and is not art, as if God spoke late one night and declared to each one that he or she and only he or she would determine what is art.” I wanted…