It was just you had to be strong, and if you weren't strong you're a victim and you're not going to make it. That was the reality when I was growing up.
No poet will ever take the written word as a substitute for the spoken word; he knows that it is on the spoken word, and the spoken word only, that his art is founded.
As far as performance, the roar of the crowd, the smell of the greasepaint no I don't feel that.