"I definitely wish to distinguish American poetry from British or other English language poetry." ― Diane Wakoski Topic(s): Poetry More From Diane Wakoski "But I am not political in the current events sense, and I have never wanted anyone to read my poetry that way." "I have always wanted what I have now come to call the voice of personal narrative. That has always been the appealing voice in poetry. It started for me lyrically in Shakespeare’s sonnets." "I think that great poetry is the most interesting and complex use of the poet’s language at that point in history, and so it’s even more exciting when you read a poet like Yeats, almost 100 years old now, and you think that perhaps no one can really top that." More In Poetry "But I can only write what the muse allows me to write. I cannot choose, I can only do what I am given, and I feel pleased when I feel close to concrete poetry – still."― Ian Hamilton Finlay "Poetry is one of the destinies of speech… One would say that the poetic image, in its newness, opens a future to language."― Gaston Bachelard "A grain of poetry suffices to season a century."― Jose Marti