110 Poetry for Students
final poem might be beyond its opening line. Writ-
ing the poem is discovering what one meant to say.
People who aren’t poets have trouble understand-
ing how mysterious the process is.
Many of your poems seem so heartfelt and per-
sonal, particularly the poems in your recent col-
lection, Interrogations at Noon. I’m thinking
especially the title poem, which discusses “the bet-
ter man I might have been, / Who chronicles the
life I’ve never led,” as well as “Curriculum Vitae,”
“A California Requiem,” and certainly “Pente-
cost” seem to speak to the reader about the author.
To what extent do you chronicle your own experi-
ences, and to what extent do you adopt a persona
in your poems?
My poems are personal but almost never en-
tirely autobiographical. I combine my own experi-
ences with observations from other people often
adding elements of pure fantasy to create situations
and stories that feel true. I deliberately try to elim-
inate myself in literal terms from the poem. The
speaker of the poem may resemble me, but he or
she is also a surrogate for the reader. Paradoxically,
I find that the more I invent the more candid and
truthful I become.
How does the audience affect your poetry? By
that I mean, when you give a reading of your po-
ems, does that situation dictate your choice of po-
ems to be read?
When I write poetry, I don’t consider the au-
dience except in the most general terms—as fellow
human beings who share the English language. But
when I give a public poetry reading, I always con-
sider my immediate audience. I don’t worry much
about its level of literary sophistication. If a poem
is good enough, it should communicate at some es-
sential level to most audiences. What I consider
mostly is each audience’s range of life experience.
To understand a poem it helps to have lived at least
a little of its contents. I take readings seriously. The
sort of poetry I love best is meant to be spoken
aloud and heard.
Does the act of reading in public transform the
experience of those poems for you? What do you
wish your audience to receive or take away from a
reading?
Yes, over time the act of giving poetry read-
ings has gradually transformed my attitude toward
my own poems. Now that the finished poems ex-
ist independently of me in print I find that I am
merely one of their readers, and I begin to see them
very differently. They often mean things I never
initially realized or intended.In the title essay of your 1992 collection, Can
Poetry Matter?, you lamented the fact that “most
poetry is published in journals that address an in-
sular audience of literary professions.” Nine years
later, do you see any reasons for optimism about
the dissemination of good and accessible poetry to
a large reading public?
A great deal has changed since the publication
of Can Poetry Matter?—some for the good, some for
the worse, the most important development has been
the astonishing growth of the poetry world outside
the university. There has been an explosion of poetry
readings, festivals, broadcasts, and conferences based
in libraries, bookstores, galleries, and communities.
(I like to think my original essay had something to
do with inspiring academic outsiders to build these
new enterprises since many people have written me
letters saying so, but perhaps I unduly flatter myself.)
These new poetry venues range from the sublime, to
the ridiculous, but collectively they have had the ef-
fect of democratizing our literary culture. Most of this
activity happens on a local basis, so it has hardly chal-
lenged the established reputation-making power of
New York and the Northeast, but this new bohemia
does allow poets to speak directly to a broader and
more diverse audience than ever before.
Writing has been called a lonely profession be-
cause it is performed of necessity in solitude. Do
you have a support system—family, friends,
colleagues—people who offer encouragement in
your practice of what is generally considered, in
America at least, an unorthodox profession?
Writing is mostly a solitary endeavor—
sometimes terribly so. For many years I wrote after
work and on the weekends. I had to give up a great
many things to make the time for poetry. That deci-
sion exacted its price in human terms, but I paid it
gladly because I felt most truly myself, most intensely
alive when writing or reading. Now my life is even
more solitary. I no longer work in a busy office but
alone in a studio across the hill from my house. Many
days I see no one except my family—and a great
many animals. If things go badly, my life can be-
come very lonely. I accept that loneliness as a nec-
essary part of who I am. I should be lost without my
friends, even though I seldom see them. Solitary peo-
ple feel friendship deeply. There are a few fellow po-
ets I love quite deeply. They sustain me.
In your experience, can writing poetry be a
therapeutic exercise as well as an imaginative, cre-
ative endeavor? Do you sometimes turn to writing
poetry as a means of coping with difficulties in life,
past and present?The Litany