
“A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.”
"The Obscurity of the Poet". p. 9
No Other Book: Selected Essays (1999)
Variant: How poet and public stared at each other with righteous indignation, till the poet said, “Since you won’t read me, I’ll make sure you can’t” — is one of the most complicated and interesting of stories.
“A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.”
Source: If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
“How shall we venture home?
How shall we tell each other of the poet?”
"The Gates"
The Gates (1976)
Context: How shall we venture home?
How shall we tell each other of the poet?
How can we meet the judgment on the poet,
or his execution? How shall we free him? How shall we speak to the infant beginning to run?
All those beginning to run?
The Age for Love
Context: I remember, the reasoning of a man determined to arrive that I tried to lull to sleep the inward voice that cried, "You have no right to put on paper, to give to the public what this noble writer said to you, supposing that he was receiving a poet, not a reporter." But I heard also the voice of my chief saying, "You will never succeed."
“Poets work upon and through each other.”
Every Changing Shape, Carcanet Press Ltd ISBN 978-1857542479
“You sure you don’t want me to stay? I’ll make you coffee and ask you about your day.”
Source: Magic Strikes