These wrinkles are nothing These gray hairs are nothing, This stomach which sags with old food, these bruised and swollen ankles, my darkening brain, they are nothing. I am the same boy my mother used to kiss.
The number of people writing poems is vast, and their reasons for doing so are many, that much can be surmised from the stacks of submissions.
Usually a life turned into a poem is misrepresented.
Pain is filtered in a poem so that it becomes finally, in the end, pleasure.
Poetry is, first and last, language - the rest is filler.
I think the best American poetry is the poetry that utilizes the resources of poetry rather than exploits the defects or triumphs of the poet's personality.
