Deep Feeling Doesn't Make For

My Old Teacher's Definition Of Poetry Is An Attempt To Understand.

As If Hands Were Enough To Hold An Avalanche Off.

Thus For Each Blunt-faced Ignorant One The Great Grey Rigid Uniform Combined Safety With Virtue Of The Sun. Thus Concepts Linked Like Chainmail In The Mind.

There Have Been Two Popular Subjects For Poetry In The Last Few Decades: The Vietnam War And Aids, About Both Of Which Almost All Of Us Have Felt Deeply.

I Try Not To Observe Myself In The Process Of Composing A Poem Because I Don't Want To Come Up With A Formula, Which I Would Then Be Unscrupulous In Using.