We simply have not kept in touch with poetry

Living at that pitch, on that edge, is something which many poets engage in to some extent.

For whatever reason, people, including very well-educated people or people otherwise interested in reading, do not read poetry

I certainly am interested in accessibility, clarity, and immediacy.

Your average pop song or film is a very sophisticated item, with very sophisticated ways of listening and viewing that we have not really consciously developed over the years - because we were having such a good time

The point of poetry is to be acutely discomforting, to prod and provoke, to poke us in the eye, to punch us in the nose, to knock us off our feet, to take our breath away.

One will never again look at a birch tree, after the Robert Frost poem, in exactly the same way.