Detachment Produces A Peculiar State Of Mind.

Then You Develop A Kind Of Critical Sense About What You Write. You Can Tell When Something Is Good, But It Would Be Just As Good In Somebody Else's Work Too. You Want To Hold Out For Those Things Only You Can Say.

We've Always Had A Tradition In America Of Hounding Our Artists To Death. Look At The List Of Our Great Artists, You See A Continual History Of Defeat, Frustration, Poverty, Alcoholism, Drug Addiction. The Best Poets Of My Generation Are All Suicides.

If You Write Well, You Don't Have To Dress Funny.

A Poet Trains Himself To Stand Out In A Storm And Be Struck By Lightning. If He Is Lucky Enough To Be Struck Six Times, He Becomes Immortal. Randall Jarrell Said It And He's Right.

I Do Think The Author Ought To Be Able To Give A Good Reason For The Way Things Are In His Poem. Not A Bad Question To Ask Oneself.