Distracted From Distraction By Distraction

One Of The Surest Tests Of The Superiority Or Inferiority Of A Poet Is The Way In Which A Poet Borrows. Immature Poets Imitate Mature Poets Steal Bad Poets Deface What They Take And Good Poets Make It Into Something Better Or At Least Something Different. The Good Poet Welds His Theft Into A Whole Of Feeling Which Is Unique Utterly Different Than That From Which It Is Torn The Bad Poet Throws It Into Something Which Has No Cohesion. A Good Poet Will Usually Borrow From Authors Remote In Time Or Alien In Language Or Diverse In Interest.

It Is Generally A Feminine Eye That First Detects The Moral Deficiencies Hidden Under The 'dear Deceit' Of Beauty.

As We Grow Older, The World Becomes Stranger, The Pattern More Complicated Of Dead And Living.

Any Poet, If He Is To Survive Beyond His 25th Year, Must Alter; He Must Seek New Literary Influences; He Will Have Different Emotions To Express.

I Was Too Slow A Mover To Be A Boxer. It Was Much Easier To Be A Poet.