Salvation

Here, as in the other poems, there is the question of forgiveness. I’m curious about where forgiveness falls in your treatment of your own poetry (the people in your poems, your sympathy for the speaker, your process as the author).

Interesting. I’ve just written a poem called “Forgiveness: A Colloquy.” Forgiveness is a subject that has long fascinated me, perhaps because how many times over the years I’ve needed to be forgiven, perhaps because of Dostoyevsky’s compelling notion that it’s harder to allow yourself to be forgiven than to forgive. In one case, you have to admit to yourself and the other that you’ve been awful. The forgiver, on the other hand, is left feeling good about himself, as the charitable do.