Poetry, I tell my students, is idiosyncratic. Poetry is where we are ourselves, (though Sterling Brown said"Every 'I' is a dramatic 'I'")digging in the clam flats for the shell that snaps, emptying the proverbial pocketbook. Poetry is what you finding the dirt in the corner, overhear on the bus, Godwin the details, the only way to get from here to there. Poetry (and now my voice is rising)is not all love, love, Loveland I'm sorry the dog died. Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)is the human voice, and are we not of interest to each other?

American Sublime: Poems