"My foremost preoccupation at the moment is the search for an idiom which is individual, contemporary and musical. And one that has sufficient authority to bear the full weight of whatever passion I would wish to lay upon it. "Every poet who has been confined - at the mercy of form when he has come of age emotionally - and has found half the things he wants to say well out of his poem's range, knows the immensity of the task. And I am not speaking here of metrical skills, but of absolute freshness and authenticity in handling diction. "What I write about must develop from my life and times. I am especially conscious of the great natural forces which bring modern life up to date. My concern here is with the exact emotional proportions - proportions as they are now current for me. Ideally, whatever is heightened should be justified both by art and by life; while the poet remains vulnerable to those moments when a poem suddenly makes its own terms - and wit
poet | critic | writer