Another Excerpt From Lecture

The poet is never frightened by the image he sees in the mirror because he knows that it is not a reflection of who he is but a singular, shallow representation of what society and basic human instinct deem him to be. And, in many ways, the poet cannot shake loose these bonds because they are the very definition of his existence. As a result, image is often processed first, usurping all other instincts of love and honesty, appreciation and civility – and by doing this the poet wanders through the foreign world, lost, desperate, astonished, unable to find the pleasures of living in people. And so, he turns to imagination as his savior, to give meaning to his travels, to undue those chains that summon the darkest corners – where the newborn woman carries in her teeth the silent ivory and where the young boy who invents the rivers of dreams flees through the dry rain – and imprison the poet who seeks to recreate our faces before the blindness of reason arrived, chisel by chisel, bone by bone, voice by voice.