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Poet Roundtable
9.
AOTW: Wordsworth said, "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility." Do you agree? If not, what is poetry for you?
Robin Robertson: Poetry should be a grace in motion, with a beautiful machine hidden inside. Like a deer.
Mark Ford: These things are very hard to talk about. For me writing poetry is about hunches and nagging feelings and worrying away at words and trying not to wreck the poem and feeling inordinately pleased with myself when it finally gets finished. The first poem in Soft Sift evolved over years, though it's only fifty lines long. I wrote the first lines in Kyoto in 1993, and finally finished it in London in 1996. I don't mind wrestling with a poem for protracted periods, in fact much prefer that to the horrible calm that succeeds when I haven't got anything in progress. It's like a little secret I share only with myself.
Carol Muske-Dukes: My last book (essays called Married to the Icepick Killer: A Poet in Hollywood) was reviewed by Publisher's Weekly and the reviewer was so unread that he (or she) thought that when I quoted those famous lines from Wordsworth, that they were my own. And this reviewer, after quoting Wordsworth's lines and attributing them to me, said that this quote of mine was "pretentious." Isn't that great? Maybe THAT's what poetry is --- mixing up famous quotes!
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