My own particular circumstance guaranteed that I'd never feel normal or manage to fit into mainstream life. Until a person knows that, from the mind,… - Linda Hogan

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My own particular circumstance guaranteed that I'd never feel normal or manage to fit into mainstream life. Until a person knows that, from the mind, they feel crazy. Now I see there's no need to fit. You know, it's not that Indians are different from the dominant culture. We are the same with the same needs and loves and heartaches. It's just that most Indians know time and space well enough from the heart to know that life is for living. Because we are short in our span here and we are not the most significant of lives on earth. We share the planet with plants and animals equal to ourselves, and we are small in the universe. So the daily strivings fall into place. I feel that poetry is a process of uncovering our real knowledge. To manipulate the language merely via the intellect takes away the strength of the poem.