Identity is the continuity in a personality that survives through various vicissitudes, through change.
Jonathan W. GalassiI think that my early poems were probably more concerned with time passing because of unfulfilled desires or yearnings. Now, I feel younger than I felt when I was a young old man. Now I want to live as long as I can.
Jonathan W. GalassiI'm old-fashioned enough to really still believe that the poem is an object to be memorized, venerated... I still believe in that kind of poem. A lot of poets today don't, they want to get away from the poem as object. They want something looser. Unfortunately, a lot of it is boring to me.
Jonathan W. GalassiIf you're reading an exciting book, it raises an expectation but it also raises a fear that the author is not going to deliver, that the expectation is not going to be met, you're going to be disappointed by a wrong turn. But when the thing is completed, the exhilaration and gratitude are deeply intense. You've gotten to read a great thing at its moment of emergence.
Jonathan W. GalassiI wanted to be involved with literature. I certainly wasn't going to be able to write for a living, and I didn't have enough confidence in my talent to think that I should be just doing that. Publishing seemed like fun to me - to be involved with writers. And it did turn out to be. I thought I'd try it, and I'm still trying it, 40 years later.
Jonathan W. GalassiPoetry is always in transformation. There are certain aspects of contemporary Italian poetry that are very preoccupied with politics and deconstruction and they don't deeply interest me. But that's the case in most cultures. We have our own Language Poetry, which doesn't interest me either.
Jonathan W. Galassi