The Difference Between Art And

They Have No Idea That It Can Be Done By A Bus Driver, A Field Hand, Or A Fry Cook. They Have No Idea Where It Comes From. It Comes From Pain, Damnation And Impossibility. The Blow To The Soul Of The Gut. It Comes From Getting Burned And Seared And Slugged. It Comes From...new And Awful Places And The Same Old Places.

I Should Think That Many Of Our Poets, The Honest Ones, Will Confess To Having No Manifesto. It Is A Painful Confession But The Art Of Poetry Carries Its Own Powers Without Having To Break Them Down Into Critical Listings. I Do Not Mean That Poetry Should Be Raffish And Irresponsible Clown Tossing Off Words Into The Void. But The Very Feeling Of A Good Poem Carries Its Own Reason For Being... Art Is Its Own Excuse, And It’s Either Art Or It’s Something Else. It’s Either A Poem Or A Piece Of Cheese.

The Poet, As A Rule, Is A Half-man - A Sissy, Not A Real Person, And He Is In No Shape To Lead Real Men In Matters Of Blood, Or Courage.

I Held Her Wrists And Then I Got It Through The Eyes: Hatred, Centuries Deep And True. I Was Wrong And Graceless And Sick. All The Things I Had Learned Had Been Wasted. There Was No Creature Living As Foul As I And All My Poems Were False.

Even The Stove And The Refrigerator Looked Human, I Mean Good Human - They Seemed To Have Arms And Voices And They Said, Hang Around, Kid, It's Good Here, It Can Be Very Good Here.