And yet, in a culture like ours, which is given to material comforts, and addicted to forms of entertainment that offer immediate gratification, it is surprising that so much poetry is written. – Mark Strand
I certainly cant speak for all cultures or all societies, but its clear that in America, poetry serves a very marginal purpose. Its not part of the cultural mainstream. – Mark Strand
I think the best American poetry is the poetry that utilizes the resources of poetry rather than exploits the defects or triumphs of the poets personality. – Mark Strand
In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed — they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? — the cuckoo clock. – Graham Greene and Orson Wells, The Third Man