Diane Wakoski

High and low culture come together in all Post Modern art, and American poetry is not excluded from this.

Still, language is resilient, and poetry when it is pressured simply goes underground.

Because, in fact, women, feminists, do read my poetry, and they read it often with the power of their political interpretation. I don’t care that’s what poetry is supposed to do.

American poetry, like American painting, is always personal with an emphasis on the individuality of the poet.

But I am not political in the current events sense, and I have never wanted anyone to read my poetry that way.

I think that’s what poetry does. It allows people to come together and identify with a common thing that is outside of themselves, but which they identify with from the interior.