The Mind Can Be Trained To Relieve

I Knew That Poets Seemed To Be Miserable.

More Often Than Not In Poetry I Find Difficulty To Be Gratuitous And Show-offy And Camouflaging, Experimental To A Kind Of Insane Degree - A Difficulty Which Really Ignores The Possibility Of Having A Sensible Reader.

I Think What Gets A Poem Going Is An Initiating Line. Sometimes A First Line Will Occur, And It Goes Nowhere; But Other Times - And This, I Think, Is A Sense You Develop - I Can Tell That The Line Wants To Continue. If It Does, I Can Feel A Sense Of Momentum - The Poem Finds A Reason For Continuing.

Introduction To Poetry I Ask Them To Take A Poem And Hold It Up To The Light Like A Color Slide Or Press An Ear Against Its Hive. I Say Drop A Mouse Into A Poem And Watch Him Probe His Way Out, Or Walk Inside The Poem's Room And Feel The Walls For A Light Switch. I Want Them To Waterski Across The Surface Of A Poem Waving At The Author's Name On The Shore. But All They Want To Do Is Tie The Poem To A Chair With Rope And Torture A Confession Out Of It. They Begin Beating It With A Hose To Find Out What It Really Means.

I Could Look At You Forever And Never See The Two Of Us Together