Poetry, Almost By Definition, Calls Attention To

Some People Want To Call Me An Appalachian Writer, Even Though I Know Some People Use Regional Labels To Belittle.

The Language Poets Are Writing Only About Language Itself. The Ashbery Poets Are Writing Only About Poetry Itself. That Seems To Me A Kind Of Dead End.

The Fact That Something Is In A Rhymed Form Or In Blank Verse Will Not Make It Good Poetry.

Some People Swear By Writing Courses, But Whether It Really Helps American Poetry, I Have Doubts.

What Actually Makes Poetry Poetry Is Of Course Impossible To Define. We Recognize It When We Hear It, When We See It, But We Can't Define It.