I'm a political poet - let us say a 'human' poet, a poet that's concerned with the plight of people who suffer. If words can be of assistance, then that's what I'm going to use.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
My poems are political in the deeper sense of the word. Political means to live in your time, to be a man of your time.
I am not quite a poet but I am something of the kind.
I always thought that poetry is the verdict that others give to a certain kind of writing. So to call yourself a poet is a kind of dangerous description. It's for others; it's for others to use.
The poet is someone, I think, who's interested in registering experience immediately or giving you the sense of immediacy and directness.
If I'm the people's poet, then I ought to be in people's hands - and, I hope, in their heart.
You don't help people in your poems. I've been trying to help people all my life - that's my trouble.
Ideally, I'd love to write poems that intrigued humans across the board: literary folk and academics as well as... dog-walkers, doctors, plumbers, chefs, math professors, jugglers, etc.
As far as I am concerned, poetry is a statement concerning the human condition, composed in verse.
A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.
A person who's only suffering can't write a poem. There are choices to be made, and you need to be objective.