it is the attempt to do right. And rather than either being handed to us by God or just made up by each person, is inherent in human groups. "There are deep rules of morality that we as human beings, in human groups, 'invented' on biological and social and intellectual lines." Her poetry and philosophy often intersect, and she has taught a course called "Poets and Philosophy" at the New School for many years. Her own taste is for poets who are concerned with philosophical or religious questions. "Leopardi's misery makes me as happy as Schopenhauer's does, though I am ever aware of the equal cacophony of birth and pleasure that shadow their admittedly much more deafening symphony of death and suffering. Dickinson I treasure beyond measure and think she's mostly on my side of the nonbeliever line; anyway, she's my number-one poet. Hopkins has a few rhyming hunks of pure passion, frustrated but wild, which I love with a love that is more than a love, but which only go so far. Donne is deep and great company, but he leans too much into comforting delusions for me, often when he is at his best in poetic chops and pyrotechnics. Rilke is a lifesaving self-help writer and a bit of a brilliant con artist." Atheism Hecht was raised Jewish and believed in God until she was twelve when she had what she describes as a "Talking Heads headshift", standing in her parents' house saying, "This is not my beautiful couch, I am not your beautiful daughter." In the days that followed she came to see that "we are one species among great nature, and as the trees very slowly rot, so do our pampered haunches." Eventually, she replaced faith in God with faith in humanity. Hecht has been an outspoken member of the secular community since 2003, accepting the label "atheist" somewhat reluctantly. "Initially after writing my book Doubt, I avoided the atheist label, saying only that I did not believe in God. After some reflection, I realized I needed to defend what I truly believe. I now call myself an 'atheist,' and proudly." Hecht is an honorary board member of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. In 2009, she told the FFRF convention audience: "If there is no God — and there isn't — then we [humans] made up morality. And I'm very impressed." In her 2007 interview for