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.

My poems are almost all written as Diane. I don't have any problems with that, and if other women choose to identify with this, I think that's terrific.

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

Poetry is the art of saying what you mean but disguising it.

But I am not political in the current events sense, and I have never wanted anyone to read my poetry that way.

I don't like political poetry, and I don't write it. If this question was pointing towards that, I think it is missing the point of the American tradition, which is always apolitical, even when the poetry comes out of politically active writers.

American poetry, like American painting, is always personal with an emphasis on the individuality of the poet.