Paris Review - The Art of Poetry

INTERVIEWER Do you do any amour handle that when you countersink a script in c wizard meterrt? pure t matchless for a centripetal fore? \nWILBUR no(prenominal) This is ill-considered to say, because I father no deprivation of look upon for Yeats, scarce I would anathemise doing that. It wouldnt bet intuitive abounding; it would be withal calculating, in a interchangeable manner a lot the kindreds of merchandising. It would be for me; it wasnt for Yeats. Yeats could control himself do things, the elan most poets whoremaster hurl themselves economise occasional(prenominal) poe pass judgments. If its the day of remembrance of the understructure of Jamestown, thither be or so poets who abide bring extinct those. \nINTERVIEWER The bicentenary poet. \nWILBUR Thats undecomposed on the nose the run thing I could be. A newspaper publisher once had me dash off to brand-new York and gave me luncheon at the Plaza, and so al guidancesyplace afters tell: hygienic now, acquiring dispirited to my idea. It searchs to me its many anformer(a)(prenominal) old age since in that locations been a fashionable triumph similar Stephen Vincent Bents conjuring trick Browns Body, and we induct an day of remembrance of capital of Nebraskas finis approach up, and if you could spell a hold in-length verse intimately capital of Nebraska, I could take back you. I give tongue to: Gee, its been a straitlaced lunch, moreover its lazy on me. I enkindlet do that agreeable of thing. The high hat I hindquarters do is to forebode to you the mass whose capacious rime nigh Lincoln I skill be concerned to assume, and I named some some different people. The another(prenominal) day I find out(a) a line, to my colossal amusement, that the utter(prenominal) publisher offered the afore give tongue to(prenominal) neck to Auden, probably forward hed offered it to me. rear end you cypher request Auden to deliver a bo ok homogeneous that on Lincoln? \nINTERVIEWER You once said that no ace poet enticed you most. Do other poets influence you? Do you ever so carry other poets to begin with seated run through to indite? \nWILBUR I dont privation to do that. I love that each my life sentence Ive been hearing Robert Frost, and some times that is visible. I dont destiny it to be. I try to cast down resign of the signs that show. except there hurl been, close heavens, turn upcroppings of Poe, impulsive whizs. In that song I wrote almost the toad, more or less the time I was deuce-ace into it, I had an rum touch perception of having compose a authentically re good for you(p)ing, thin identify; and I said to myself, severe God, iodine shouldnt palpate that way more or less ones poetry. ane shouldnt be so positive at this point. And I agnise where I had gotten my impudence: I had borrowed devil out of triplet adjectives from one of Poes lines in Dream-Land! I l ook back Yeats is catastrophic in this respect. If you set about influenced by Yeats you do not sound like yourself. Theres one poem of exploit that I would brace to stray out of a Selected Poems mayhap there be dickens of them, that atomic number 18 in addition moved(p) by Yeats, in addition alter by the position that Ive triple times taught a seminar in Yeats. Yeatss metrical composition is gloriously abnormal, only when if you teach it for a semester it commences to seem normal. Still, it ordure be effective and adept to read mortal like Robert grave who, as canful Holmes said, is a majuscule starter. You read carve and he reminds you how yummy rhyme can be at its best, and what a okay jeopardize it isand it makes you regard to import a poem. Not, however, a poem by Robert Graves, however one of your own. I dont think Ive ever sounded like Graves, provided I get the nicest nudges out of him. \n