
“The moment of change is the only poem.”
On how poems might be structured around a political theme in “JERICHO BROWN in conversation with MICHAEL DUMANIS” http://www.benningtonreview.org/jericho-brown-interview in Bennington Review (2018 Oct 27)
“The moment of change is the only poem.”
“Your very flesh shall be a great poem…”
Variant: And your very flesh shall be a great poem.
Source: Leaves of Grass
Paris Review interview (1996)
Context: In the long poem, if there is a single governing image at the center, then anything can fit around it, meanwhile allowing for a lot of fragmentation and discontinuity on the periphery. Short poems, for me, are coherences, single instances on the periphery of a nonspecified center. I revise short poems sometimes for years, whereas, since there is no getting lost in the long poem, I engage whatever comes up in the moment and link it with its moment.
“Relationships are good
for at least two poems—
One at the beginning
and one at the end.”
"On Being a Poet"
Swerve (1993)
“And the poem, I think, is only your voice speaking.”
Source: The Waves
Spike Milligan with Jeremy Taylor Live at Cambridge University. Recorded at Cambridge University on December 2, 1973, this was previously released as a double LP, and later re-issued as a 2 CD set. Milligan used variations on the Shakespear line throughout his later life.
"Answers to Questions," from Mid-Century American Poets, edited by John Ciardi, 1950 [p. 170]
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)