Recipe For Happiness Khaborovsk Or Anyplace' One

You Can Publish A Poem You Think Is A Very Important Poem, And You Don't Hear A Word From Anyone. [...] You Can Publish A Book Of Poetry By Dropping It Off A Cliff And Waiting To Hear An Echo. Quite Often, You'll Never Hear A Thing. So Doing That, Using Older Work, Puts It In A Context, And That Sort Of Forces The Reader To Realize What Its Importance Is-if It Has Any. Everything Needs A Context. You're Not Going To Recognize A Poet Unless You Have A Context.

I'd Ban All Automobiles From The Central Part Of The City. You See, The Automobile Was Just A Passing Fad. It's Got To Go. It's Got To Go A Long Way From Here.

The Art Has To Make It On Its Own, Without Explanations, And It’s The Same For Poetry. If The Poem Or The Painting Has To Be Explained, Then It’s A Failure In Communication.

I Certainly Was Surprised To Be Named Poet Laureate Of This Far-out City On The Left Side Of The World, And I Gratefully Accept, For As I Told The Mayor, "how Could I Refuse?" I'd Rather Be Poet Laureate Of San Francisco Than Anywhere Because This City Has Always Been A Poetic Center, A Frontier For Free Poetic Life, With Perhaps More Poets And More Poetry Readers Than Any City In The World.

A Lot Of Manuscripts That Come In, You Wonder By What Outrageous Fantasy The Author Believes That This Should Be Pressed Into Print.