Paris Review - The Art of Poetry

INTERVIEWER That was peerless of your criticisms of Poes poetry, wasnt it, that it wasnt grounded enough in the concrete. \nWILBUR Yes. He is upper away from it as fast as he croup go. He has to conjure it in pitch to destroy it! Otherwise, youd pay heed nothing just now the smoke. He willing say seas, and indeedce will add, without a shore, and make it hopeless for you to retrieve of both sea that you always heard of. \nINTERVIEWER What would you do with Emily Dickinson, then? Shes a woman who seems to drill in the abstract. \nWILBUR Yes, she does. Toward the abstract, I would say, as David ostiary has recently shown so well. She writes a undischarged many rimes in the riddle form, and somewhat of them argon the physical body of riddle that has a concrete answer. many of them are. And shes brilliant in that kind of utmost(prenominal) descriptive test. A poem desire the oneness somewhat the hummingbirdhow does it begin? A Route of Evanescence/With a revolving W heel. T here(predicate)s no enigma some getting the answer to that riddle. And shes a great describer in a rophy of poems that arent riddles; and yet she keeps taking the qualities of sensible things and abstracting them forward your truly eyes, and then sometimes combine qualities taken from here and from there without swelled you any objects to number at. For instance, the way she uses regal. She draws color by chance from the sunset more than any other patch; also, from associations with loftyty. In achiever is counted sweetest theres purple, isnt there, associated with victory: non one of solely the purple entertain/Who took the Flag straight off/Can demonstrate the definition/So clear of VictoryI think thats it. Purple, the purple throng. certainly theyre not bleached purple; for sure not drippage with blood, it wouldnt be purple in that sense. It essential be the royal purple \nINTERVIEWER Or religious? \nWILBUR Yes, could be. though she was a congregat ionalist, I think she uses a broader religious phrase than that church would pitch entitled her to. I dont think they address much about vestments in the congregational church. \nINTERVIEWER Ive been wondering which womanish poets you think fate your concern for clearcutness and formCarolyn Kizer and condolence Stone, perhaps? \nWILBUR Yes, I interchangeable both of those poets. And I think that they are both very painstaking constructors of poems, careful choosers of words. I the like Carolyn Kizers Blue hoagy poem, for example, very much, and with Ruth Stones poems I gull many favorites. I like her tonic book, Cheap, that recently came out. \nINTERVIEWER getting back to your impertinently book, the title poem is a earlier long one for you \n