I Think That The Job Of Poetry,

[osip] Mandelstam, Who Wasn't A Political Thinker, Loved The Idea Of The City-state. One Of The Emblems In His Poetry Of The Politics He Imagined, Over And Against The Universalizing Politics Of [carl] Marx, Was The Medieval City Of Novgorod, Which Had In Its Center A Public Well Where The Water Was Free To Everyone. That Became For Him A Figure Of Justice.

I Am Talking About Poetry. It's Like That Line From [john] Yeats: I Go Back To "where All The Ladders Start/ In The Foul Rag And Bone Shop Of The Heart."

We Don't Know Our Own Story.

As An Artist, You Have The Job Of Working Out Whatever Is Given You To Work Out.

One Of The Interesting Things About The History Of Poetry In The 16th, 17th, And 18th Centuries Is That People Who Read Liked Getting Their Information In Rhyme Just As Much As In Prose. The Genre That We Would Think Of As Nonfiction Often Was Written In Verse In Forms Like The Georgic When People Thought That One Of The Tasks Of Poetry Was Conveying Arguments And Information In A Pleasant Way.