You mentioned Chekhov before.
In his later journals, he said that he
felt his writing never accomplished
what he had up in his head.
And I was wondering if you feel like you're still learning.
Oh, yeah.
I think one is-- if you're still learning was the question.
Because Chekhov said, even toward the end,
in his late journals, that he was dissatisfied with his work.
Well, if he was dissatisfied, I'm really dissatisfied.
I think, if any painter or poet, whatever, is satisfied,
that they're essentially dead.
It's the next poem that's always the one that's
of interest to you, and the one that you think might be better
or might be the perfect one, or the one
that keeps tantalizing you to keep writing.
So I think the life of the artist, so to speak,
is inherently a life of dissatisfaction.
And you'll never know.
Someone has a good poem about that, escapes me.
But--
Merwin.
Huh?
Merwin.
Yeah, Merwin.
That's right.
It's part of the--
it's built into the--
it's a occupational hazard, never knowing
if it's really any good or not, and being
prodded by this frustration to try to make it better.
See, there are a number of--
the phenomenon of the poetry reading
is interesting because there are so many of them these days.
I was just over at the great library across the street
there, and there's a picture of Robert Frost taken in 1960.
You know, when Frost was doing readings in 1960,
he was doing real pioneer work.
Not many people gave public readings.
And now they're as popular as AA meetings.
And, it's like, any city, there's,
like, four of them going on every night.
And there's some overlap there.
But the interesting thing about the social phenomenon
of the poetry reading, for me, is
that it forces the poet to show an interest in poems that he
or she has written in the past, and sometimes 10
or 20 years ago.
And I don't think--
well, speaking for myself, I'm not interested in those poems
anymore.
They're done.
They're just, it's history.
I'm interested in this poem about the birds of Arizona,
mostly, and maybe something I'll write next week.
But the poetry reading asks you to get up and exhibit
a kind of interest in them, which I'm happy to do.
But there's a cleft between, I think,
what the poet's really interested
in, which is what's going to happen tomorrow
or this afternoon or what lines might get generated out
of today, or something, and how the poetry reading presents
the poet as having a rather sort of sick affection for work
that's already been completed.
And I don't think most poets are really that interested in work
that they've done a year or 10 years, 20 years ago.