I think I'm a very good reader of poetry but obviously like everybody I have a set of criteria for reading poems and I'm not shy about presenting them so if people ask for my critical response to a poem I tell them what works and why and what doesn't work and why.

I have always wanted what I have now come to call the voice of personal narrative. That has always been the appealing voice in poetry. It started for me lyrically in Shakespeare's sonnets.

I don't like political poetry and I don't write it. If this question was pointing towards that I think it is missing the point of the American tradition which is always apolitical even when the poetry comes out of politically active writers.

From reading a previous answer you know that I consider all those aspects to be part of American cultural myth and thus they figure into good American poetry whether the poet is aware of what he is doing or not.

Distinctly American poetry is usually written in the context of one's geographic landscape sometimes out of one's cultural myths and often with reference to gender and race or ethnic origins.

PC stuff just lowers the general acceptance of good work and replaces it with bogus poetry that celebrates values that in themselves are probably quite worthy.

I'm perfectly happy when I look out at an audience and it's all women. I always think it's kind of odd but then more women than men I think read and write poetry.

Because in fact women feminists do read my poetry and they read it often with the power of their political interpretation. I don't care that's what poetry is supposed to do.

Still language is resilient and poetry when it is pressured simply goes underground.

I definitely wish to distinguish American poetry from British or other English language poetry.

High and low culture come together in all Post Modern art and American poetry is not excluded from this.

But I don't think that poetry is a good to use a contemporary word venue for current events.

But I am not political in the current events sense and I have never wanted anyone to read my poetry that way.

American poetry like American painting is always personal with an emphasis on the individuality of the poet.

And I know I'm supposed to feel guilty for wanting people to buy my books... and books in general? Novels and poetry they belong to the realm of art. How dirty of us to try to hawk art! But after a decade of hand-wringing and apologies I can't quite muster the guilt anymore.

There have been two popular subjects for poetry in the last few decades: the Vietnam War and AIDS about both of which almost all of us have felt deeply.

My old teacher's definition of poetry is an attempt to understand.

Deep feeling doesn't make for good poetry. A way with language would be a bit of help.

I think poetry is best read to oneself.

I've been writing a lot of poetry recently. It helps me think and work things out.

The nerds are my favourite sort of boys - any guy with a passion - whether it be physics or film or writing or poetry even I think it's super sweet and it's very attractive for a female.

Eloquence is the poetry of prose.

How does one happen to write a poem: where does it come from? That is the question asked by the psychologists or the geneticists of poetry.

Serious poetry deals with the fundamental conflicts that cannot be logically resolved: we can state the conflicts rationally but reason does not relieve us of them.