One of my favorite poets, Neruda, writes close to the bone. Though I know only a little Spanish, I like to compare the Spanish and English lines and see how the translator worked. ↗
Concrete poets continue to turn out beautiful things, but to me they're more visual than oral, and they almost really belong on the wall rather than in a book. I haven't the least idea of where poetry is going. ↗
I think that is where poetry reading becomes such an individual thing. I mean I have friend who like poets who just don't say anything to me at all, I mean they seem to me rather ordinary and pedestrian. ↗
The south produced statesmen and soldiers, planters and doctors and lawyers and poets, but certainly no engineers and mechanics. Let Yankees adopt such low callings. ↗
With a little more time, patience, and hard work, and above all with a more sensitive taste for the formal aspects of arts, he would have managed to write mediocre poetry, good enough for a lady’s album – and this is always a gallant thing to do, whatever you may say. ↗
The community of poets I belong to is not as close as it used to be, if only for the fact that our lives have become busier: jobs, children, and the like. ↗
