A Poem Is, So To Speak, A

We Are All So To Speak Intellectuals About Something.

It Is Better To Entertain An Idea Than To Take Home To Live With You For The Rest Of Your Life.

A Successful Poem Says What A Poet Wants To Say, And More, With Particular Finality. The Remarks He Makes About His Poems Are Incidental When The Poem Is Good, Or Embarrassing Or Absurd When It Is Bad And He Is Not Permitted To Say How The Good Poem Is Good, And May Never Know How The Bad Poem Is Bad. It Is Better To Write About Other People's Poetry.

Most Poets, Most Good Poets Even, No Longer Have The Heart To Write About What Is Most Terrible In The World Of The Present: The Bombs Waiting Beside The Rockets, The Hundreds Of Millions Staring Into The Temporary Shelter Of Their Television Sets, The Decline Of The West That Seems Less A Decline Than The Fall Preceding An Explosion.

If My Tone Is Mocking, The Tone Of Someone Accustomed To Helplessness, This Is Natural: The Poet Is A Condemned Man For Whom The State Will Not Even Buy Breakfast And As Someone Said, "if You're Going To Hang Me, You Mustn't Expect To Be Able To Intimidate Me Into Sparing Your Feelings During The Execution."