The Language Poets are writing only about language itself. The Ashbery poets are writing only about poetry itself. That seems to me a kind of dead end.

Pound's translation of Chinese poetry was maybe the most important thing I read. Eliot a little bit later.

If a poem is not memorable, there's probably something wrong. One of the problems of free verse is that much of the free verse poetry is not memorable.

Philip Larkin has a tough honesty and sense of humor that I find irresistible, as a contemporary poet.