After all the embrace of friends, the walls and associates may have disappeared. After all the goodwill, the sincerity of people close to you have gone, you are left to deal with the terror of loss, and something has got to fill the void. And for me it has always been writing, and I — you see, without the ability to deal with lessons of loss, I don’t think through writing I wonder if I would have been able to heal from the twin tragedies in my life, the loss of loved ones, brothers, wife and country, I wonder whether I would have been able to heal as rapidly as I did. ((Fifth Child Burning, The Mind-Body Problem)) But so, yes, writing has always been important for me.

Now, I wish for no more tragedies in my personal life. And I’ve just finished a new book, which I think is my happiest book, a new book of poems, sent it off to a publisher. And well, again, it is loss. I lost my house, I lost my entire library, because my house took a direct hit from a falling tree. ((Naive Belief, Richard Farina)) It happens to various writers, Octavio Paz. But I have learned how to deal with loss, and it’s not something that I want to write about anymore. I have moved on.