I've thought of the last line of some poems for years and tried them out, It wouldn't work because the last line was much too beautiful for the poem.

The only way out is the way through, just as you cannot escape death except by dying. Being unable to write, you must examine in writing this being unable, which becomes for the present -henceforth?- the subject to which you are condemned.

Both poet and painter want to reach the silence behind the language, the silence within the language. Both painter and poet want their work to shine not only in daylight but (by whatever illusionist magic) from within.

For a Jewish Puritan of the middle class, the novel is serious, the novel is work, the novel is conscientious application why, the novel is practically the retail business all over again.

I am not at all clear what free verse is anymore. That's one of the things you learn not to know.

History is where tensions were.

Obvious enough that generalities work to protect the mind from the great outdoors; is it possible that this was in fact their first purpose?