Even the greatest poets can’t express tragedy in a way that is larger than their immediate circumstances.
Poets
I’m very conscious that people dear to me are alive in my imagination – poets in particular.
The poet Melvin B. Tolson once said, ‘A civilization is judged only in its decline.’ That made sense to me. I would imagine the same is true for poets and tennis players.
All poets’ wives have rotten lives Their husbands look at them like knives.
Poets are all who love, who feel great truths, And tell them; and the truth of truths is love.
Poets are like the decathletes of literature.
I worked privately, and sometimes I feel that might be better for poets than the kind of social workshop gathering. My school was the great poets: I read, and I read, and I read.
Many performance poets seem to believe that yelling a poem makes it comprehensible. They are wrong.
Modern poets talk against business, poor things, but all of us write for money. Beginners are subjected to trial by market.
I make it clear why I write as I do and why other poets write as they do. After hundreds of experiments I decided to go my own way in style and see what would happen.