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So few people read poetry. That's sad, isn't it?

I don't think anybody reads a book of poetry front to back. Editors and reviewers only. I don't think anybody else does.

I have to admit that I had a lot of problems with poetry.

One can't write for all readers. A poet cannot write for people who don't like poetry.

Poetry has the virtue of being able to say twice as much as prose in half the time, and the drawback, if you do not give it your full attention, of seeming to say half as much in twice the time.

For whatever reason, people, including very well-educated people or people otherwise interested in reading, do not read poetry.

I think that is where poetry reading becomes such an individual thing. I mean I have friend who like poets who just don't say anything to me at all, I mean they seem to me rather ordinary and pedestrian.