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Many poets, as you know, are not good readers.

And some poets are far better read off the page because they're very bad speakers. I'm thinking of one in particular whom I won't name, a good poet, and he reads in such a dry, boring way, your eyes start drooping.

No one ever was a great poet, that applied himself much to anything else.

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

I can't look at things in the simple, large way that great poets do.

There are not many poets whose fame rests on a single work.

One of the ridiculous aspects of being a poet is the huge gulf between how seriously we take ourselves and how generally we are ignored by everybody else.

I'm uncomfortable with the focus on the poet and not on the poem.

Poets take themselves very seriously.

Probably all the attention to poetry results in some value, though the attention is more often directed to lesser than to greater values.