In the television age, the key distinction is between the candidate who can speak poetry and the one who can only speak prose.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I don't think you can read poetry while you're watching television very well.
An actor is at most a poet and at least an entertainer.
Some people are suspicious of others who have more than one talent. I've had poets tell me to my face that an actress can't be a poet.
You can be far more challenging, articulate and intelligent writing for television than you can writing for the cinema.
Never use the word 'audience.' The very idea of a public, unless the poet is writing for money, seems wrong to me. Poets don't have an 'audience'. They're talking to a single person all the time.
Poetry is its own medium; it's very different than writing prose. Poetry can talk in an imagistic sense, it has particular ways of catching an environment.
Poetry is the one place where people can speak their original human mind. It is the outlet for people to say in public what is known in private.
You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.
The young people have MTV and rock and roll. Why would they go to read poetry? Poetry belongs to the Stone Age. It awakens in us perceptions that go back to those times.
The relation between a poet and audience is really insignificant. What matters is the poet is hearing something that he is broadcasting. And whether there is anybody with a receiver isn't the reason he does it. He hopes there is somebody receiving it.