There Are Some Friends You

However, I Learned Something. I Thought That If The Young Person, The Student, Has Poetry In Him Or Her, To Offer Them Help Is Like Offering A Propeller To A Bird.

When I Was Asked To Be Writer In Residence At Edinburgh I Thought, You Can't Teach Poetry. This Is Ridiculous.

But I Hang On To Books. I Love Them. I Even Think They're Very Nice Decor In A Room - Far Better Than Paintings... That's Not Quite True!

I Used To Have A Great Love For Dostoyevsky And Tolstoy, The Big Boys Of The Last Century.

In Fact A Lot Of Them I Think Are Absolute Baloney. Those Charles Olsens And People Like That. At First I Was Interested In Seeing What They Were Up To, What They Were Doing, Why They Were Doing It. They Never Moved Me In The Way That One Is Moved By True Poetry.