I gave up on new poetry myself 30 years ago when most of it began to read like coded messages passing between lonely aliens in a hostile world.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Poetry had great powers over me from my childhood, and today the poems live in my memory which I read at the age of 7 or 8 years and which drove me to desperate attempts at imitation.
In my life, I've seen enormous increase in the consumption of poetry. When I was young, there were virtually no poetry readings.
Poetry and fiction have grieved for a century now over the loss of some vitality which they think they see in a past from which we are by now irrevocably alienated.
I cannot speak for more than an hour exclusively about poetry. At that point, life itself takes over again.
Back then, I couldn't have left a poem a year and gone back to it.
I think poetry was always where I went to deal with my deepest feelings.
As a child, what captivated me was reading the poems myself and realizing that there was a world without material substance which was nevertheless as alive as any other.
I have to admit that I had a lot of problems with poetry.
The more I read my poems, the more I find out about them. I still read them with the same passion I felt when I wrote them as a young man.
I think my poems immediately come out of the sensuous and emotional experiences I have.