Write The Poem Only You Can Write.

I Just Think That The World Of Workshops - I've Written A Poem That Is A Parody Of Workshop Talk, I've Written A Poem That Is A Kind Of Parody Of A Garrulous Poet At A Poetry Reading Who Spends An Inordinate Amount Of Time Explaining The Poem Before Reading It, I've Written A Number Of Satirical Poems About Other Poets.

I Think A Good Poem Should Have Some Inscrutable Part. You Can't Quite Explain It. The Poem Can Only Explain Itself To A Certain Limit And At That Point You Enter Into A Little Bit Of Mystery. That For Me Is The Perfect Poem: To Begin In Clarity And To End In Mystery.

I Find It Strange That - At Least In My Take On It - The People Who Are The Most Alarmed About The Dire Times We Live In Are The Ones Who Seem To Be Humorless, In Their Taste For Poetry Anyway. Humor Is Just An Ingredient. It's Always Been In Poetry. It Kind Of Dropped Out Of Poetry I Think During The 19th And Up To The Mid-twentieth Century. But It's Found Its Way Back. And It's Simply An Ingredient.

Vade Mecum I Want The Scissors To Be Sharp And The Table Perfectly Level When You Cut Me Out Of My Life And Paste Me In That Book You Always Carry.

Poetry Is Like Standing On The Edge Of A Lake On A Moonlit Night And The Light Of The Moon Is Always Pointing Straight At You.