high intonation

For most people poetry is like opera: something beautiful being sung with high intonation, but whether someone is to be betrothed or someone is being entombed, none know.

poetry wants you

Poetry opens its arms to people society has trouble accepting.

splinter group

Poets are one of society’s splinter groups.

art and anarchy

...art is a kind of anarchy, and the theater is a province of art. What was missing here, was something anarchistic in the air. I must modify that statement about art and anarchy. Art is only anarchy in juxtaposition with organized society. It runs counter to the sort of orderliness on which organized society apparently must be based. It is a benevolent anarchy: it must be that and if it is true art, it is. It is benevolent in the sense of constructing something which is missing, and what it constructs may be merely criticism of things as they exist.

—Tennessee Williams, “Something Wild,” Where I Live: Selected Essays (New Directions, 1978), edited by Christine B. Day and Bob Woods

important poem

A poem that was a monument in the collective consciousness.

stream of story and theme

The same stories and themes follow us because we as a society are constantly breaking camp and moving on.

art of questionable character

Poetry is literature’s vice. When critics admonish the current state of poetry for its lack of social acceptability, for its recalcitrance, we know the art is going wrong in a good way.

noise one can't ignore

Like one’s conscience, political poetry is that little nagging voice in the back of society’s head.

inside and out

A poetry insider is a society outsider.

all poems are political

In contemporary society, to write a poem is a political act.