American - Poet | April 11, 1934 - November 29, 2014
The number of people writing poems is vast, and their reasons for doing so are many, that much can be surmised from the stacks of submissions.
Mark Strand
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Poetry is, first and last, language - the rest is filler.
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Poetry is something that happens in universities, in creative writing programs or in English departments.
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Pain is filtered in a poem so that it becomes finally, in the end, pleasure.
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I think the best American poetry is the poetry that utilizes the resources of poetry rather than exploits the defects or triumphs of the poet's personality.
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I tend to like poems that engage me - that is to say, which do not bore me.
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I certainly can't speak for all cultures or all societies, but it's clear that in America, poetry serves a very marginal purpose. It's not part of the cultural mainstream.
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From the reader's view, a poem is more demanding than prose.
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For some of us, the less said about the way we do things the better.
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And yet, in a culture like ours, which is given to material comforts, and addicted to forms of entertainment that offer immediate gratification, it is surprising that so much poetry is written.
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And Robert Lowell, of course - in his poems, we're not located in his actual life. We're located more in the externals, in the journalistic facts of his life.
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And at least in poetry you should feel free to lie. That is, not to lie, but to imagine what you want, to follow the direction of the poem.
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