A Perfect Poem Is Impossible. Once It

Truth-loving Persians Do Not Dwell Upon The Trivial Skirmish Fought Near Marathon.

If I Were A Young Man With My Bones Full Of Marrow, Oh, If I Were A Bold Young Man Straight As An Arrow, I'd Store Up No Virtue For Heaven's Distant Plain, I'd Live At Ease As I Did Please And Sin Once Again.

Never Use The Word 'audience.' The Very Idea Of A Public, Unless The Poet Is Writing For Money, Seems Wrong To Me. Poets Don't Have An 'audience'. They're Talking To A Single Person All The Time.

The Difference Between Prose Logic And Poetic Thought Is Simple. The Logician Uses Words As A Builder Uses Bricks, For The Unemotional Deadness Of His Academic Prose; And Is Always Coining Newer, Deader Words With A Natural Preference For Greek Formations. The Poet Avoids The Entire Vocabulary Of Logic Unless For Satiric Purposes, And Treats Words As Living Creatures With A Preference For Those With Long Emotional Histories Dating From Mediaeval Times. Poetry At Its Purest Is, Indeed, A Defiance Of Logic.

Faults In English Prose Derive Not So Much From Lack Of Knowledge, Intelligence Or Art As From Lack Of Thought, Patience Or Goodwill.