"We've never really settled down as a modern democracy to say 'Look, we've got all this land, how should it be owned and used, how should it be governed, what kind of stake should people have in it?' Other countries in Europe had that debate 150 or 200 years ago".
If the collections gimmick is to personify, and speak forthrightly to, things, events and states of being (orgasms, for example: "Youve never really settled down / Have you, orgasms?), its best poems transcend gimmickry through that mixture of earnestness, ebullience and dreamy romanticism that long ago rendered Koch the ageless grad student of the New York School of Poets.
"You can't really settle down because your visa status is uncertain".
"But it has generally settled down".
"His knee hasn't settled down," Lancaster explained.
"It was really unpleasant, but then as soon as it had happened, within ten minutes the flashpoint had settled down and the police had made, I think, one arrest".
WHAT if you had never settled down?
"I have never settled down," she once told an interviewer.
"This season things have settled down, recruitment was excellent in the summer and... it helped in making sure we had a really strong squad this season.
