Poems should stand on their own

Morning all,

Hope the weekend is treating you well? I came across another quote today that I thought you might enjoy…

“I hope any poem I’ve ever written could stand on its own and not need to be a part of biography, critical theory or cultural studies. I don’t want to give a poetry reading and have to provide the story behind the poem in order for it to make sense to an audience. I certainly don’t want the poem to require a critical intermediary – a ‘spokescritic.’ I want my poems to be independently meaningful moments of power for a good reader. And that’s the expectation I initially bring to other poets’ writing.”

Beautifully written and very true, wouldn’t you agree?

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