It is I who feel profoundly fucked up

"When I was at Harvard, Jamaica Kincaid once said in our workshop, 'Write about that which most embarrasses you.' I think that's profoundly good advice. It's so easy, isn't it, to climb atop a soapbox and recite a poem about the ways in which we believe the world is fucked up? Who, for example, doesn't know the whole world is in cinders. And so I believe my work can be more effective, can reach deeper inside the reader if I say, 'It is I who feel profoundly fucked up,' and then explore why, meticulously." --Robin Coste Lewis