The Language Poets are writing only about language itself. The Ashbery poets are writing only about poetry itself. That seems to me a kind of dead end.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Poets are seen as the caretakers of language, so working with words no matter what the form is what we do.
We all write poems; it is simply that poets are the ones who write in words.
Poems have a different music from ordinary language, and every poem has a different kind of music of necessity, and that's, in a way, the hardest thing about writing poetry is waiting for that music, and sometimes you never know if it's going to come.
Poems are a form of music, and language just happens to be our instrument - language and breath.
But poetry is a way of language, it is not its subject or its maker's background or interests or hobbies or fixations. It is nearer to utterance than history.
Poets are like the decathletes of literature.
They say poets write mostly for themselves; if anyone else likes it, well and good, if not, it doesn't matter; certainly, not to me.
Poetry is of so subtle a spirit, that in the pouring out of one language into another it will evaporate.
I have the feeling that a lot of poets writing now are - they sort of tap dance through it.
One can't write for all readers. A poet cannot write for people who don't like poetry.
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