My art and poetry is very political now. Because you’ve got to find that truth within you and express yourself. Somewhere out there, I know, there will be people who will listen.
I was in Paris at an English-language bookstore. I picked up a volume of Dickinson’s poetry. I came back to my hotel, read 2,000 of her poems and immediately began composing in my head. I wrote down the melodies even before I got to a piano.
In my opinion, the most significant works of the twentieth century are those that rise beyond the conceptual tyranny of genre they are, at the same time, poetry, criticism, narrative, drama, etc.
For whatever reason, people, including very well-educated people or people otherwise interested in reading, do not read poetry.
That’s one of the great things about poetry one realises that one does one’s little turn – that you’re just part of the great crop, as it were.
The other side of it is that, despite all that, people reach out to poetry at the key moments in their lives.