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Galway Kinnell came out with that wonderful big, breathy, hollow voice of his and read, for the first time in public, "The Bear." That poem impressed me so much that I memorized it. I used it for years when I taught in prisons. It's a powerful extended metaphor for what the writing life is really all about. It's a uniquely powerful poem about self-transformation, and that's what we're asking, really, beyond even our objection to the war. We're asking people to look at themselves and think about what might be possible with a little self-transformation.

Interview with Anne-Marie Cusac, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. March 31, 2003.
Galway Kinnell came out with that wonderful big, breathy, hollow voice of his and read, for the first time in public, The Bear. That poem impressed me so much that I memorized it. I used it for years when I taught in