Someone sits at a table or lies on a sofa while staring motionless at a wall or ceiling. Once in a while this person writes down seven lines, only to cross out one of them 15 minutes later, and then another hour passes, during which nothing happens. Who could stand to watch this kind of thing?
Category Archive: 1923
Sometimes I really have a spiritual need to say something more general about the world, and sometimes something personal.
Even the worst book can give us something to think about.
I usually write for the individual reader -though I would like to have many such readers. There are some poets who write for people assembled in big rooms, so they can live through something collectively. I prefer my reader to take my poem and have a one-on-one relationship with it.
However, intention needn’t enter in, and if a reader sees things in a religious way, and the work is dogmatically acceptable, then I don’t see why it should not be interpreted in that way, as well as in others.
This terrifying world is not devoid of charms, of the mornings that make waking up worthwhile.
Poetry operates by hints and dark suggestions. It is full of secrets and hidden formulae, like a witch’s brew.
Everyone needs solitude, especially a person who is used to thinking about what she experiences. Solitude is very important in my work as a mode of inspiration, but isolation is not good in this respect. I am not writing poetry about isolation.
My definition of modernism took a while to develop.
Well, if this is poetry, I’m certainly never going to write any myself.