The professionalization of poetry, or the balkanization, has come out of the fact that when you apply to most creative writing programs, you have to choose your genre.
Robert HassWhere politics is concerned, I think poets have to be pragmatists, philosophical pragmatists.
Robert HassOnce you figure out something about the watershed, you'll find out where the schools are going to hell, and the kids aren't learning, and there is no money. Social issues, class issues, and environmental issues were all connected.
Robert HassThe market doesn't make communities. Markets make networks of self-interested individuals, and they work as long as there's more than enough to go around.
Robert HassOne of the interesting things about the history of poetry in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries is that people who read liked getting their information in rhyme just as much as in prose. The genre that we would think of as nonfiction often was written in verse in forms like the Georgic when people thought that one of the tasks of poetry was conveying arguments and information in a pleasant way.
Robert Hass