I suppose this next text is kind of manifesto,
except that I did not write it.
All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow
of powerful feelings.
All good poetry is forged slowly and patiently, leak by leak,
with sweat and blood and tears.
All good poetry is difficult to read,
but we are not aware of this fact, when we
are considering the classics.
All good poetry is important.
Not because it fills our lives with more stories,
but because it exposes the chinks
in the armament of our stories.
All good poetry is nature poetry.
All good poetry is a public act.
All good poetry is popular immediately.
All good poetry is meant to be read aloud.
All good poetry is metaphysical because it
deals with love and death.
All good poetry is selective, leaving much unsaid.
All good poetry is good to read, so long as the words do not
seem forced, but flow like water.
All good poetry is not the result of self therapy.
All good poetry is Japanese in the speed
at which it must be read.
All good poetry is an effusion of strong emotional experience.
All good poetry is political.
All good poetry is sensuous or colorful.
All good poetry is already music in itself.
All good poetry is formal.
All good poetry is metaphysical.
And the best poet knows the mind of the audience really,
really well.
All good poetry is kept within the discipline of the craft,
there to shine even more brightly and purely.
All good poetry is about bringing one
into contact with beauty.
All good poetry is both controlled and ambiguous,
powerful and decidedly mature.
All good poetry is magical in some way,
but with a specific kind of magic, instantly recognizable,
yet near impossible to paraphrase, or even parody.
All good poetry is about authentic experience
and the ability to recreate that experience
for yourself, and for others.
All good poetry is confessional poetry.
All good poetry is angsty.
All good poetry is odd, in some fashion.
All good poetry is a gamble, and poems of place
don't always pay off.
All good poetry is a kernel of truth, a piece of the singular
truth of love's existence.
All good poetry is adapted to outdoor reading.
All good poetry is paradoxical.
All good poetry is a metaphor of eternal truth.
All good poetry is born in the moment of its making.
All good poetry is disconcerting for a moment, at least,
when we first see it for what it is.
All good poetry is about word choice, perfect flow,
and things of that sort.
All good poetry is designed to leave room
for the imagination of the reader.
[APPLAUSE]