I think that's what poetry does. It allows people to come together and identify with a common thing that is outside of themselves, but which they identify with from the interior.

American poetry is always about defining oneself individually,claiming one's right to be different and often to break taboos.

I definitely wish to distinguish American poetry from British or other English language poetry.

Sometimes the archaism of the language when it's spoken is why we are all in love with the Irish today.

Poetry is one of the essential structures of civilization - carrying myth, ritual, 'tales of the tribe' and the essence of language.

I have always wanted what I have now come to call the voice of personal narrative. That has always been the appealing voice in poetry. It started for me lyrically in Shakespeare's sonnets.

But I don't think that poetry is a good, to use a contemporary word, venue, for current events.