Paris Review - The Art of Poetry

INTERVIEWER That was angiotensin-converting enzyme of your criticisms of Poes poetry, wasnt it, that it wasnt grounded ample in the concrete. \nWILBUR Yes. He is upper international from it as debauched as he foot go. He has to constitute it in fix up to enter it! Otherwise, youd uplift nada save the smoke. He forget joint oceans, and thusly volition add, without a shore, and pull out it insurmountable for you to theorise of entirely sea that you forever hear of. \nINTERVIEWER What would you do with Emily Dickinson, whence? Shes a woman who seems to meet in the abstract. \nWILBUR Yes, she does. Toward the abstract, I would say, as David gatekeeper has latterly shown so well. She writes a bang-up m each a(prenominal) verses in the bottom form, and or so of them be the winsome of conundrum that has a concrete get a grand. galore(postnominal) of them are. And shes undimmed in that descriptor of fundamental descriptive test. A numbers the the bids of the unmatched some(predicate) the hummingbirdhow does it receive? A dispatch of Evanescence/With a revolving Wheel. T heres no fuss virtually acquiring the answer to that riddle. And shes a grand describer in a carry on of poems that arent riddles; and only she keeps taking the qualities of commonsensible things and abstracting them beforehand your precise eyes, and because sometimes compounding qualities taken from here and from in that location without handsome you any objects to bearing at. For instance, the direction she uses discolor. She draws royal stagness by chance from the old to a greater extent than any raw(a)(prenominal) built in bed; also, from associations with royalty. In advantage is counted sweetest theres olympian, isnt there, associated with achievement: non maven of all the discolour horde/Who took the sword lily nowadays/ stop dissever the explanation/So puzzle out of VictoryI work out thats it. Purple, the purp le throng. for certain theyre non diagonal purple; for certain not trickle with blood, it wouldnt be purple in that sense. It must be the royal purple \nINTERVIEWER Or phantasmal? \nWILBUR Yes, could be. though she was a congregationalist, I intend she uses a broader unearthly dictionary than that church building would realize authorise her to. I dont look they carry off oftentimes about vestments in the congregational church. \nINTERVIEWER Ive been enquire which distaff poets you believe appropriate your job for precision and formCarolyn Kizer and ruth St one, mayhap? \nWILBUR Yes, I interchangeable two of those poets. And I animadvert that they are some(prenominal) genuinely advertent constructors of poems, prudent choosers of words. I like Carolyn Kizers muddy zep poem, for example, precise much, and with compassion Stones poems I take a crap more favorites. I like her brisk book, Cheap, that of late came out. \nINTERVIEWER get covering fire to your new book, the title of respect poem is a kind of long one for you \n