Quoted: LitKicks: the world's best website for writers, poets and readers since 1994

Quoted: poetry craft and theory: composition, analysis and improvement of literary work, including translation and the creation of good copies of well-known poems.

You hear me make extreme statements like "don't communicate" and "there is no reader." While these statements are meant as said, I presume when I make them that you can communicate and can write clear English sentences. I caution against communication because once language exists only to convey information, it is dying.

Quoted: Poetry Daily, the online web anthology and bookstore. A new poem every day, along with poetry news, archives, and more.

Poetry Magazine Online

often make these remarks to a beginning poetry writing class. You'll never be a poet until you realize that everything I say today and this quarter is wrong. It may be right for me, but it is wrong for you. Every moment, I am, without wanting or trying to, telling you to write like me. But I hope you learn to write like you. In a sense, I hope I don't teach you how to write but how to teach yourself how to write. At all times keep your crap detector on. If I say something that helps, good. If what I say is of no help, let it go. Don't start arguments. They are futile and take us away from our purpose. As Yeats noted, your important arguments are with yourself. If you don't agree with me, don't listen. Think about something else.