I Don't Know Whether A Poem Has

I Wonder What It Means About American Literary Culture And Its Transmission When I Consider The Number Of American Poets Who Earn Their Living Teaching Creative Writing In Universities. I've Ended Up Doing That Myself.

Did You Love Well What Very Soon You Left? Come Home And Take Me In Your Arms And Take Away This Stomach Ache, Headache, Heartache. Never So Full, I Never Was Bereft So Utterly. The Winter Evenings Drift Dark To The Window. Not One Work Will Make You, Where You Are, Turn In Your Day, Or Wake From Your Night Toward Me. The Only Gift I Got To Keep Or Give Is What I've Cried, Floodgates Let Down To Mourning For The Dead Chances, For The End Of Being Young, For Everyone I Loved Who Really Died. I Drank Our One Year Out In Brine Instead Of Honey From The Seasons Of Your Tongue.

There Is Something Very Satisfactory About Being In The Middle Of Something.

I've Been An Inveterate Reader Of Literary Magazines Since I Was A Teenager. There Are Always Discoveries. You're Sitting In Your Easy Chair, Reading; You Realize You've Read A Story Or A Group Of Poems Four Times, And You Know, Yes, I Want To Go Farther With This Writer.

I Worked At All Kinds Of Jobs, Mostly Commercial Editing.