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I am not at all clear what free verse is anymore. That's one of the things you learn not to know.

What I do say is that I can write verse, and that the writing of verse in strict form is the best possible training for writing good prose.

I've read some of your modern free verse and wonder who set it free.

Write verse, not poetry. The public wants verse. If you have a talent for poetry, then don't by any means mother it, but try your hand at verse.

There are people who think it's easier to write books in verse, and it's definitely not.

But in a lot of ways my poems are very conventional, and it's no big deal for me to write a poem in either free verse or strict form; modern poets can, and do, do both.

The problem with writing a book in verse is, to be successful, it has to sound like you knocked it off on a rainy Friday afternoon. It has to sound easy. When you can do it, it helps tremendously because it's a thing that forces kids to read on. You have this unconsummated feeling if you stop.

I have not the slightest pretension to call my verses poetry; I write now and then for no other purpose than to relieve depression or to improve my English.

To me, a poem that's in rhyme and meter is the difference between watching a film in full color and watching a film in black and white. Not that a few black and white films aren't wonderful. So are certain successful pieces of free verse.

The vast majority of free verse is ghastly. Utterly ghastly. No one reads it. No one listens to it.