In a manner of speaking, the poem is its own knower, neither poet nor reader knowing anything that the poem says apart from the words of the poem.

The only real evidence that any critic may bring before his gaze is the finished poem.

The Spring I seek is in a new face only.

We know the particular poem, not what it says that we can restate.

Serious poetry deals with the fundamental conflicts that cannot be logically resolved: we can state the conflicts rationally, but reason does not relieve us of them.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko is a ham actor, not a poet.

Genetic theories, I gather, have been cherished academically with detachment.