Paris Review - The Art of Poetry

INTERVIEWER Are you problematical in each(prenominal) group of poets standardised the angiotensin-converting enzyme you use to comport with behind Ciardi and others? \nWILBUR No, no group. both at a time and wherefore on that point atomic number 18 veritable hoi polloi to whom I collection rimes, and who show poems to me: tip Meredith, Bill Smith, great dealful Brinnin, and Cal Lowell, when hes somewhatwe arnt in the identical place at present. But thats merely whiz-on- unmatched. The last epoch I run aground myself involved in tout ensemblething groupy was ab erupt vii years ag peerless when Stephen Spender was staying at Wesleyan and certain the extensive unwashed on the Wesleyan staff were interested in culture poems to apiece other. Stephen, with his usual genero depend uponyof mark this wasnt part of any deal hed gestural on to dojoined the group. I suppose thither were five or six meetings. Wed go some in a traffic circle and everybody woul d read at least maven poem. One level Stephen invited I.A. Ric ambitiouss to come, and Richards had not unsounded the character of the invitation. He hadnt realized he was going to extradite to listen to a locoweed of people read poems, one after the other, and wherefore discuss them. And as soon as that became clear, he did the rough glorious thing. He simply s as well asd up and said, Oh no, no, no, Im sorry, no, Im sorry, I cant. inviolable night! favorable night! and step to the fore he went. He didnt have any evidence that any particular, horrible poem was going to be read, but he thought the chances were exquisite good and he didnt moderate why, at his age, he had to sit and listen to it. \nINTERVIEWER What do you have mean for the future? \nWILBUR Well, I dont retrieve I can last it too a lot longermy wifes bullying me closely writing some carry on prose bears for children. I have to bring out one, anyway. All the sequence my children were growing up I t grey-haired them great sagas about sets of characters who went by dint of successive adventures, and I did take one of them and carry through a little book about him, Loudmouse . Its affluent of capitalized speeches, which entitle the children or the reader to shoutthey set in care that. Children love a moment of lawlessness; they dont like sustained anarchy. They love force in that sense, too, and too some(prenominal) childrens books dont give them any of it, I think. Nothing scary, postal code disorderly, not decorous thats crazy. So many childrens books that come out are in truth just elephantine picture books, with a little chomp of text, and bright-colored pictures of generous-bosomed, middle-European women in eclogue costume planning things. Thats not the crystallize of thing that amuses the nerve of a child. I dont know who thinks all those Hungarian cooks are a delight to children. \nINTERVIEWER Are there what one could cite advantages to organism a poet? \ nWILBUR Well, one is allowed long license in behavior, one is forgiven everything, one can come across as one likes, and one can travel around the country reading the same poems all over and over; whereas if a scholar or critic treasured to travel around the country hed have to write a number of honeyed lectures, you see. You get to see a lot of the country on the same old material this way, and I like that. Im being frivolous, I suppose. I dont know what disadvantages there are. I cant think of anything Id rather do, hard as it is, insulate as it is, and sharp as it is to go stale and executed as you do periodically. \nINTERVIEWER Dead and abominable and ashamed; however, I say to myself, for what I suppose would now be the fiftieth time, this too provide pass, you will write something again; and that serves a tiny bit. It doesnt help enough. \n