When Europeans came upon real ruined cities they refused to believe that they had been built by Africans. Here the past has been distorted and denied. ↗
Alchemy is the art of far and near, and I think poetry is alchemy in that way. It's delightful to distort size, to see something that's tiny as though it were vast. ↗
One of the most powerful devices is to distort time, to go from human time to atomic time, geologic time. Sometimes you can actually accomplish that, with one unexpected word choice. ↗
One of the most powerful devices of poetry is the use of distortions. You can go from talking about the way a minute passes to the way a century passes, or a lifetime. ↗
People's real hopes and dreams can be distorted and misdirected and packaged until you're not sure what you really want or what you even really need. ↗
In talking, shyness and timidity distort the very meaning of my words. I don't pretend to know anybody well. People are like shadows to me and I am like a shadow. ↗