Diane Wakoski

Im perfectly happy when I look out at an audience and its all women. I always think its kind of odd, but then, more women than men, I think, read and write poetry. – Diane Wakoski

Distinctly American poetry is usually written in the context of ones geographic landscape, sometimes out of ones cultural myths, and often with reference to gender and race or ethnic origins. – Diane Wakoski

I dont like political poetry, and I dont write it. If this question was pointing towards that, I think it is missing the point of the American tradition, which is always apolitical, even when the poetry comes out of politically active writers. – Diane Wakoski

I have always wanted what I have now come to call the voice of personal narrative. That has always been the appealing voice in poetry. It started for me lyrically in Shakespeares sonnets. – Diane Wakoski

I think Im a very good reader of poetry, but obviously, like everybody, I have a set of criteria for reading poems, and Im not shy about presenting them, so if people ask for my critical response to a poem, I tell them what works and why, and what doesnt work and why. – Diane Wakoski

I think that great poetry is the most interesting and complex use of the poets language at that point in history, and so its even more exciting when you read a poet like Yeats, almost 100 years old now, and you think that perhaps no one can really top that. – Diane Wakoski

But I dont think that poetry is a good, to use a contemporary word, venue, for current events. – Diane Wakoski

Because, in fact, women, feminists, do read my poetry, and they read it often with the power of their political interpretation. I dont care thats what poetry is supposed to do. – Diane Wakoski

I think thats what poetry does. It allows people to come together and identify with a common thing that is outside of themselves, but which they identify with from the interior. – Diane Wakoski

American poetry, like American painting, is always personal with an emphasis on the individuality of the poet. – Diane Wakoski

But I am not political in the current events sense, and I have never wanted anyone to read my poetry that way. – Diane Wakoski

High and low culture come together in all Post Modern art, and American poetry is not excluded from this. – Diane Wakoski

I definitely wish to distinguish American poetry from British or other English language poetry. – Diane Wakoski

Still, language is resilient, and poetry when it is pressured simply goes underground. – Diane Wakoski

PC stuff just lowers the general acceptance of good work and replaces it with bogus poetry that celebrates values that in themselves are probably quite worthy. – Diane Wakoski

From reading a previous answer, you know that I consider all those aspects to be part of American cultural myth and thus they figure into good American poetry, whether the poet is aware of what he is doing or not. – Diane Wakoski