Poetry Is An Orphan Of Silence. The

Words Make Love On The Page Like Flies In The Summer Heat And The Poet Is Only The Bemused Spectator.

The Ambition Of Much Of Today's Literary Theory Seems To Be To Find Ways To Read Literature Without Imagination.

Here In The United States, We Speak With Reverence Of Authentic Experience. We Write Poems About Our Daddies Taking Us Fishing And Breaking Our Hearts By Making Us Throw The Little Fish Back Into The River. We Even Tell The Reader The Kind Of Car We Were Driving, The Year And The Model, To Give The Impression That It’s All True. It’s Because We Think Of Ourselves As Journalists Of A Kind. Like Them, We’ll Go Anywhere For A Story. Don’t Believe A Word Of It. As Any Poet Can Tell You, One Often Sees Better With Eyes Closed Than With Eyes Wide Open.

A 'truth' Detached And Purified Of Pleasures Of Ordinary Life Is Not Worth A Damn In My View. Every Grand Theory And Noble Sentiment Ought To Be First Tested In The Kitchen-and Then In Bed, Of Course.

Poetry Is An Orphan Of Silence. The Words Never Quite Equal The Experience Behind Them.