I Was Aware That A Quarter Of

Everybody Has A Different Idea Of When Those Good Old Days Were, But Everyone Is Convinced That There Was A Time When Literature Really Mattered And That It Doesn't Now. They Also Tend To Believe That It Really Matters Someplace Else - In Very Improbable Places Often. Russia Is Someone's Idea Of A Place Where Literature Really Counts.

Do Poets Have Any Insight Into What's The Right Ratio? I Doubt It, But I Think That They Can Be Awake To What The Ends Are.

I Think That The Job Of Poetry, Its Political Job, Is To Refresh The Idea Of Justice, Which Is Going Dead In Us All The Time.

If You Read Three Books A Day You Couldn't Read All The Poetry That's Being Published.

I Teach A Lecture Course On American Poetry To As Many As 150 Students. For A Lot Of Them, Its Their Only Elective, So This Is Their One Shot. Theyll Take The Russian Novel Or American Poetry, So I Want To Give Them The High Points, The Inescapable Poets.