One lesson you better learn if you want to be in politics is that you never go out on a golf course and beat the President.

Of course a poem is a two-way street. No poem is any good if it doesn't suggest to the reader things from his own mind and recollection that he will read into it and will add to what the poet has suggested. But I do think poetry readings are very important.

But at the beginning it was clear to me that concrete poetry was peculiarly suited for using in public settings. This was my idea but of course I never really much got the chance to do it.

Poetry being the sign of that which all men desire even though the desire be unconscious intensity of life or completeness of experience the universality of its appeal is a matter of course.

Besides the actual reading in class of many poems I would suggest you do two things: first while teaching everything you can and keeping free of it teach that poetry is a mode of discourse that differs from logical exposition.

I love painting and music of course. I don't know nearly as much about them as I know about poetry. I've certainly been influenced by fiction. I was overwhelmed by War and Peace when I read it and I didn't read it until I was in my late 20s.

A life is not sufficiently elevated for poetry unless of course the life has been made into an art.

All those authors there most of whom of course I've never met. That's the poetry side that's the prose side that's the fishing and miscellaneous behind me. You get an affection for books that you've enjoyed.

What actually makes poetry poetry is of course impossible to define. We recognize it when we hear it when we see it but we can't define it.

Some people swear by writing courses but whether it really helps American poetry I have doubts.