One Does Not Become A Guru By

When We Study Shakespeare On The Page, For Academic Purposes, We May Require All Kinds Of Help. Generally, We Read Him In Modern Spelling And With Modern Punctuation, And With Notes. But Any Poetry That Is Performed - From Song Lyric To Tragic Speech - Must Make Its Point, As It Were, Without Reference Back.

I Don't See That A Single Line Can Constitute A Stanza, Although It Can Constitute A Whole Poem.

A Poem With Grandly Conceived And Executed Stanzas, Such As One Of Keats's Odes, Should Be Like An Enfilade Of Rooms In A Palace: One Proceeds, With Eager Anticipation, From Room To Room.

I've Not Been A Prolific Poet, And It Always Seemed To Me To Be A Bad Idea To Feel That You Had To Produce In Order To Get... Credits. Production Of A Collection Of Poems Every Three Years Or Every Five Years, Or Whatever, Looks Good, On Paper. But It Might Not Be Good; It Might Be Writing On A Kind Of Automatic Pilot.

Free Verse Seemed Democratic Because It Offered Freedom Of Access To Writers. And Those Who Disdained Free Verse Would Always Be Open To Accusations Of Elitism, Mandarinism. Open Form Was Like Common Ground On Which All Might Graze Their Cattle - It Was Not To Be Closed In By Usurping Landlords.