I think that concrete poetry seems to have, as far as I can see, come to a kind of a dead end. It doesnt seem to be going any further than it went in its high period of about five or six years ago. – James Laughlin
Then, of course, there are those sad occasions when a poet or a writer has not grown, and one has to let them go because theyre just not making headway. But we have a very clear personal relationship with the authors. – James Laughlin
Concrete poets continue to turn out beautiful things, but to me theyre more visual than oral, and they almost really belong on the wall rather than in a book. I havent the least idea of where poetry is going. – James Laughlin
I think theres no excuse for the American poetry reader not knowing a good deal about what is going on in the rest of the world. – James Laughlin
Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things. – T.S. Eliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent, 1919