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 definitely wish to distinguish American poetry from British or other English language poetry. – 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
People who make puns are like wanton boys that put coppers on the railroad tracks. They amuse themselves and other children, but their little trick may upset a freight train of conversation for the sake of a battered witticism. – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, 1858