Actions Have Consequences. Ignorance About The Nature

For The Past Thirty Years Or So, Much American Poetry Has Been Marked By An Earnestness That Rejects The Comic. This Has Nothing To Do With Seriousness. The Comic Can Be Very Serious. The Trouble With The Earnest Is That It Seeks To Be Commended. It Seeks To Be Praised For Its Intention More Than For What It Is Saying.

Reading A Good Poem Can Give Me A Far Bigger Kick Than A Novel. But It's Not Something I Can Keep Doing. It Would Be Like Shooting Up 10 Times A Day.

I Had A Period When I Read Nobel Prize Winners. I Figured They Had To Be Good. I Discovered Some People I Didn't Know About, Like The Icelandic Writer Halldor Laxness, Who Wrote "independent People." .

I Had Not Read George Eliot, So Read A Few. I Felt Ashamed I Hadn't Read "middlemarch" Before.

It Was As If Pain Were A Room He Had Entered And The Door Had Been Locked Behind Him.