from *Public Domain*
Gill Ott
Potes and Poets Press
1989

"Language is no one's. Never was. The true site of all language
is the pairing, writer to reader, speaker to listener. The
poem is a public event, host to a multitude of private entries,
a defined anarchy. Understood and practiced in this way, it is
powerful.

The regimentation of meaning is criminal, even in the least
increment. Language is at once ambiguous and persuasive
enough to offer itself as a tool to advantage and oppression,
and seen as a medium, neutral. Complicity in this crime, as
auditor/actors as much as speakers, contributes heartily to our
public experience and behavior, as consumers, workers,
citizens."