Quote of the Day

"Why are so many folks glued to Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and wrestling smackdowns? Contemporary mass culture, if you let it run your life, essentially teaches you to be an uncritical consumer of whatever puke they throw at you. Poetry, like music and photography, gives you something to think through and see the world. It is a way of engagement that no one can take away from you. It gives you a way of mediating the world. By writing a poem you actually create that rarest of creatures in the world capitalist culture--something with virtually no monetary or utilitarian value."
--Joel Lewis

For "poem," you could substitute "blog entry" or (generally speaking) "short story" or "essay" or--these days--"literary novel." Writing has to be its own reward or . . . blah, blah, blah.

Here's another quote:

"You can make a fortune from writing--but you can't make a living." --James Michener (think about it)