A poet must leave traces of his passage, not proof.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The importance of poetry is not measured, finally, by what the poet says but by how he says it.
The only real evidence that any critic may bring before his gaze is the finished poem.
The poet must decide not to impose his feelings in order to write without sentimentality.
A poem is never finished, only abandoned.
As a young poet, you need corroboration, and that's what publication does.
The poet does not know - often he will never know - whom he really writes for.
After the last line of a poem, nothing follows except literary criticism.
But maybe it's up in the hills under the leaves or in a ditch somewhere. Maybe it's never found. But what you find, whatever you find, is always only part of the missing, and writing is the way the poet finds out what it is he found.
We simply have not kept in touch with poetry.
A poet can survive everything but a misprint.