But I still don't have a clear idea of what my voice is.
Kathy Acker
Yeah, I mean, I put work out there for people to use and I'm grateful when you use it.
I think the best thing in cases of censorship or things like this is to get as much media as possible.
I found my voice was a reaction to all that voice stuff.
And I'm working at trying to find a kind of language where I won't be so easily modulated by expectation.
Well, I think writing is basically about time and rhythm. Like with jazz. You have your basic melody and then you just riff off of it. And the riffs are about timing.
I might be writing what people expect me to write, writing from that place where I might be ruled by economic considerations. To overcome that, I started working with my dreams, because I'm not so censored when I use dream material.
I'm very staid compared to my students, actually.
There's a backlash against womyn that's really bad right now.
On the surface we all act like we all love each other and we're free and easy, and actually we're far more moralistic than any other society I've ever lived in.
The literary culture, if you examine it, the high literary culture is that which preserves the government and you know it's really the talk for those who have.
Some of the stuff about Yogi energy is really fascinating.
That's what the right-wing is good at: figuring out the left wing.
You know I've had work banned.
I wasn't really into body piercings until I found that about half my female students had them.
I think what we have in this country is a little more dangerous in a way because it can't be seen fully. It's sorta internal censorship. We censor each other.
I understand that when people read my books that there's something there - but I don't identify with it.
And internalization is used in this country as a very effective political tool.
But guys such as Allen and William are more supportive than most men.
First of all, writing at best - certainly fiction writing - more and more I think is magic.
I mean, once work's out there it's meant to be used.
I mean, they censor your work when they're scared of it.
I question: do we really understand the differences between modernist and postmodernist?
I think it's really important to find out why people hurt you or try to oppose you or whatever.
I understand that postmodern literature probably means people like DeLillo, The Fiction Collective, but I don't get it that those writers are really influenced by postmodern theorists.
I write it to get it out of me. I don't write it to remember it.
I'm really fascinated and you know I've been wondering about that usage of language, various breathing techniques and why in these practices language is being used in another way.
One of the reasons I think the ultra right-wing has such power in this country is that no one talks out.
Traveling around I don't think people are that horrible, I think they just don't know.
We get on the bandwagon in all sorts of ways - you know minor ways and major ways - like what you've just encountered which isn't censorship exactly, it was something sort of uglier in a way.
We've been very bad at understanding why the right-wing does things.
Well, fear and homophobia are both pervasive.
You can do whatever you want with my work.
