Maxine Kumin confessed to a recognition that her early poems of witness, especially those in House, Bridge, Fountain, Gate, were more audacious than she realized: “I was not aware of it.
Ruth Stone produced this startling admission: “Something funny, I can tell you, that when I’m writing I’m not experiencing anything.” Maxine Kumin confessed to a recognition that her early poems of witness, especially those in House, Bridge, Fountain, Gate, were more audacious than she realized: “I was not aware of it. Looking back they seem much more daring.” And Lucille Clifton communicated a surprising observation about her own writing rules: “I do carpentry that is needed for what’s going on, in the carpenter’s rule, not the poet’s rule. One hopes to come ever closer to what poetry wants, what that poem wants.”