Many of my poems are not sexual.

One is always nearer by not keeping still.

It was difficult being a teacher and out of the closet in the '50s. By the time I retired, the English department was proud of having a gay poet of a certain minor fame. It was a very satisfactory change!

My old teacher's definition of poetry is an attempt to understand.

Many of my poems are not sexual.

We learned in the university to consider Wordsworth and Keats as Romantics. They were only a generation apart, but Wordsworth didn't even read Keats's book when he gave him a copy.

We tend to put poems into factions. And it restricts our reading.