American poets celebrate their bodies, very specifically, as Whitman did.

There are rituals not structures for being a poet, drinking too much, taking too many drugs, being a lady chaser, having your nervous breakdown, being irresponsible about money.

We are authors, all of us, concerned with beginning, with making, with sources and substance.

American poets celebrate their bodies, very specifically, as Whitman did.

Poems reveal secrets when they are analyzed. The poet's pleasure in finding ingenious ways to enclose her secrets should be matched by the reader's pleasure in unlocking and revealing these secrets.

From reading a previous answer, you know that I consider all those aspects to be part of American cultural myth and thus they figure into good American poetry, whether the poet is aware of what he is doing or not.

Learning to live what you're born with is the process, the involvement, the making of a life.