In fact, lots of good poetry doesn't work , so I don't mind a bit of mystification or difficulty.

When you're rereading or editing your book and you start to expect that this work is going to be reviewed, and you can sort of tell which line is going to show up in reviews.

Writing a poem is a more personal experience, I think, than writing prose. And perhaps reading a poem is a more personal experience than reading prose, though that's harder to say.

You become a writer because you like to be alone in a room with your books.

Nabokov quote: "I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child."

In fact, lots of good poetry doesn't work , so I don't mind a bit of mystification or difficulty.

Poetry is a way of being alone without feeling alone. It allows you to experience another mind, I suppose. And it does that more fully than other art forms, I think. It doesn't simply describe an experience, or a feeling, or a moment: it evokes it through, say, rhythm or tone or diction or metaphor. It creates a mood. A poem communicates before it is understood; it's not a fully paraphrasable form, which distinguishes it from other forms of writing.