James Schuyler
Well, if this is poetry, I'm certainly never going to write any myself.Collection: Poetry
However, if a poem can be reduced to a prose sentence, there can't be much to it.Collection: Poetry
However, intention needn't enter in, and if a reader sees things in a religious way, and the work is dogmatically acceptable, then I don't see why it should not be interpreted in that way, as well as in others.
I do not usually revise much, though I often cut, particularly the end or toward the end of a poem.
In the past I have declined to comment on my own work: because, it seems to me, a poem is what it is; because a poem is itself a definition, and to try to redefine it is to be apt to falsify it; and because the author is the person least able to consider his work objectively.
It is always pleasant to learn that someone takes an interest in a work which one enjoyed writing.
It seems to me that readers sometimes make the genesis of a poem more mysterious than it is (by that I perhaps mean, think of it as something outside their own experience).
One tends to write beyond what's needed.
The aim of the poet, or other artist, is first to make something; and it's impossible to make something out of words and not communicate.
To change your phrase somewhat, I know that I like an art where disparate elements form an entity.
I wish i could press snowflakes in a book like flowers.Collection: Flower
Looking at the sky last night and the moon in the first fresh dark, just a few stars, bright with their cold flares, I had a little crumpled thought, 'Oh well, the moon. It's just another place like California.' One's imagination drags its feet as we are inexorably hauled into the future.Collection: Stars
The aim of the poet, or other artist, is first to make something; and it's impossible to make something out of words and not communicateCollection: Artist
Snow falling softly on lashes of eyes you love, and a cold cheek growing warm next to your own in hushed dark familial December.Collection: Fall
In the past I have declined to comment on my own work: because, it seems to me, a poem is what it is; because a poem is itself a definition, and to try to redefine it is to be apt to falsify it; and because the author is the person least able to consider his work objectivelyCollection: Past
It seems to me that readers sometimes make the genesis of a poem more mysterious than it is (by that I perhaps mean, think of it as something outside their own experience)Collection: Mean
It is always pleasant to learn that someone takes an interest in a work which one enjoyed writingCollection: Writing
A nothing day full of wild beauty .... Little fish stream by, a river in water.Collection: Wild Beauty
I do not usually revise much, though I often cut, particularly the end or toward the end of a poemCollection: Cutting
One tends to write beyond what's neededCollection: Writing
What are the questions you wish to ask?Collection: Wish