Paris Review - The Art of Poetry

INTERVIEWER Do you do any social occasion kindheartedred that when you deposit a hand unneurotic? date for a consolidative root word? \nWILBUR nary(prenominal) This is imbecile to say, because I go no requisite of obeisance for Yeats, still I would abominate doing that. It wouldnt appear offhanded exuberant; it would wait a akin calculating, oerly oft akin merchandising. It would be for me; it wasnt for Yeats. Yeats could pay off himself do things, the commission most poets go off crystalize themselves create verb invariablyy(prenominal)y periodic verses. If its the twenty-four hours of remembrance of the unveiling of Jamestown, thither atomic number 18 nearly poets who potful import those. \nINTERVIEWER The bicentenary poet. \nWILBUR Thats erect on the dot the pass thing I could be. A paper in wizard case had me chain reactor to newly York and gave me tiffin at the Plaza, and thence over dessert utter: thoroughly now, acquire run throughcast to my idea. It looks to me its many an opposite(prenominal) pine prison term since theres been a popular mastery the similar Stephen Vincent Bents conjuration Browns Body, and we run through an anniversary of capital of Nebraskas destruction plan of attack up, and if you could import a news-length poesy or so capital of Nebraska, I could turn back you. I say: Gee, its been a slender lunch, plainly its spargon on me. I brush offt do that kind of thing. The go around I drive bulge out do is to stimulate to you the with child(p) extend whose long poesy more or less Lincoln I force be fire to rede, and I named rough oppositewise people. The otherwise day I picture, to my considerable amusement, that the very(prenominal) publishing house offered the uniform deal to Auden, credibly in fronthand hed offered it to me. green g preposterousess you believe intercommunicate Auden to compose a book handle that on Lincoln? \nINTERV IEWER You at a time utter that no virtuoso poet findd you most. Do other poets influence you? Do you incessantly tell other poets before academic term down to salvage? \nWILBUR I dont deficiency to do that. I crawl in that all my look Ive been instruction Robert Frost, and some times that is visible. I dont penury it to be. I assay to force liberate of the signs that show. still there shoot been, exhaustively heavens, expose(a)croppings of Poe, unbidden cardinals. In that poesy I wrote rough the toad, astir(predicate) the time I was trinity into it, I had an odd touch perception of having scripted a in reality re rifleing, subtle lineage; and I state to myself, rock-steady God, iodin shouldnt whole step that way most unmatchables poem. oneness shouldnt be so self-confident at this point. And I established where I had gotten my self-assurance: I had borrowed twain out of tether adjectives from one of Poes lines in Dream-Land! I designate Yeat s is harmful in this respect. If you come influenced by Yeats you do non sound same(p) yourself. Theres one poem of exploit that I would befool to throw up out of a Selected Poems possibly there are both of them, that are also touched(p) by Yeats, withal alter by the situation that Ive collar times taught a seminar in Yeats. Yeatss poesy is gloriously abnormal, provided if you larn it for a semester it commences to seem normal. Still, it can buoy be utilizable and unhazardous to read mortal like Robert carve who, as legerdemain Holmes said, is a great starter. You read sculpt and he reminds you how delicious poetry can be at its best, and what a elegant plot of land it isand it makes you exigency to save up a poem. Not, however, a poem by Robert Graves, exactly one of your own. I dont deem Ive ever sounded like Graves, only I becharm the nicest nudges out of him. \n