There was a beautiful stretch of time-the sixties, early seventies-when everybody's musical culture was together, and that was great. But now the sha… - Alicia Ostriker

I began as a poet in the 1960s, and became a feminist poet in the 1970s. In the mid-1980s, I discovered I was a feminist Jewish poet.

My writing is always a gamble. I take the risk of going deep into myself, trusting that if I can go deeply enough, and translate the complex of feelings within myself into articulate language, it will be meaningful to others. We are all islands, but connected—so to speak—on the ocean floor, where human experience is very much shared in common.

I love the idea that I write poems that are porous. That have openings and loopholes and...invite people in rather than telling them something.