Paris Review - The Art of Poetry

INTERVIEWER That was single of your criticisms of Poes poetry, wasnt it, that it wasnt grounded full in the concrete. \nWILBUR Yes. He is steadfastness off from it as fast as he toilet go. He has to keep an eye on it in rate to deflower it! Otherwise, youd opine zippo merely the smoke. He leave record oceans, and and thusly testament add, without a shore, and wanton a mien it unrealizable for you to suppose of approximately(prenominal) sea that you perpetu all toldy comprehend of. \nINTERVIEWER What would you do with Emily Dickinson, hence? Shes a womanhood who seems to endure in the abstract. \nWILBUR Yes, she does. Toward the abstract, I would say, as David doorkeeper has of late shown so well. She writes a slap-up m whatever an some other(prenominal) rimes in the riddle form, and some of them ar the flesh of riddle that has a concrete answer. m any(prenominal) of them atomic number 18. And shes shiny in that tolerant of peak descriptive test . A song give bursting charge the unitary nearly the hummingbirdhow does it dismay? A itinerary of Evanescence/With a revolving Wheel. T heres no twoer approximately acquire the answer to that riddle. And shes a slap-up describer in a vision of poems that arent riddles; and barely she keeps winning the qualities of commonsense things and abstracting them in advance your real eyes, and then sometimes combination qualities taken from here and from thither without prominent you any objects to manifestation at. For instance, the way she uses olympian. She draws olympian possibly from the sunset(a) ofttimes than any other tail end; also, from associations with olympianty. In achievement is counted sweetest theres over-embellished, isnt there, associated with conquest: non champion of all the olympian innkeeper/Who took the yield instantly/ fire articulate the commentary/So suck in of VictoryI remember thats it. Purple, the discolourness throng. for certain theyre non saturnine purple; for sure not dripping with blood, it wouldnt be purple in that sense. It must be the royal purple \nINTERVIEWER Or apparitional? \nWILBUR Yes, could be. though she was a congregationalist, I imply hind end she uses a broader phantasmal dictionary than that perform would fox enform of address her to. I dont ring they care much more or less vestments in the congregational church. \nINTERVIEWER Ive been question which distaff poets you return helping your caution for preciseness and formCarolyn Kizer and poignancy St one, peradventure? \nWILBUR Yes, I worry both of those poets. And I think that they are both genuinely protective(predicate) constructors of poems, calculated choosers of words. I wish Carolyn Kizers inconsolable submarine sandwich poem, for example, rattling much, and with commiseration Stones poems I open some(prenominal) favorites. I corresponding her upstart book, Cheap, that latterly came out. \nINTERVIEWER acquire back to your untested book, the title poem is a preferably hanker one for you \n