In general, I would think that at present prose writers are much in advance of the poets. In the old days, I read more poetry than prose, but now it is in prose where you find things being put together well, where there is great ambition, and equal talent. Poets have gotten so careless, it is a disgrace. You canโt pick up a page. All the words slide off.
William H. GassIf you were a fully realized person-whatever the hell that would be-you wouldn't fool around writing books.
William H. GassThe word itself has another color. Itโs not a word with any resonance, although the e was once pronounced. There is only the bump now between b and l, the relief at the end, the whew. It hasnโt the sly turn which crimson takes halfway through, yellowโs deceptive jelly, or the rolled-down sound in brown. It hasnโt violetโs rapid sexual shudder or like a rough road the irregularity of ultramarine, the low puddle in mauve like a pancake covered in cream, the disapproving purse to pink, the assertive brevity of red, the whine of green.
William H. GassSo to the wretched writer I should like to say that thereโs one body only whose request for your caresses is not vulgar, is not unchaste, untoward, or impolite: the body of your work itself; for you must remember that your attentions will not merely celebrate a beauty but create one; that yours is love that brings it own birth with it, just as Plato has declared, and that you should therefore give up the blue things of this world in favor of the words which say them
William H. Gass