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The following questions were sent to a number of poets, for them to answer individually or to use as a basis for a general statement about the writing of poetry today.

(a) Would poetry be more effective, i.e. interest more people more profoundly, if it were concerned with the issues of our time?

(b) Do you feel your views on politics or religion influence the kind of poetry you write? Alternatively, do you think poetry has uses as well as pleasure?

(c) Do you feel any dissatisfaction with the short lyric as a poetic medium? If so, are there any poems of a longer or non-lyric kind that you visualize yourself writing?

(d) What living poets continue to influence you, English or American?

(e) Are you conscious of any current ‘poeticization’ of language which requires to be broken up in favour of a more ‘natural’ diction? Alternatively, do you feel any undue impoverishment in poetic diction at the moment?

(f) Do you see this as a good or bad period for writing poetry?

GEORGE SEFERIS

(a) I do not believe that the poet can a priori decide which poetry is more effective. He has to express himself; in other words to express what is in his guts. There the issues of our time might very probably be also found.

(b) All our views are bound to influence the kind of poetry we write. In what way? That is another story.

(c) I don’t quite understand this question. For example I read the other day, in a Sunday paper, a very short lyric by Theodore Roethke which seemed to me quite effective. All forms of poems, lyric or dramatic, can be satisfactory provided they are, at a given occasion, the only means of expression for a good poet.

(d) I am at a loss to speak about influences. Their ways are so concealed. For example, I discovered influences in myself many years after my first contact with a certain work of art, not necessarily poetical.

(e) This question is difficult for me to answer; the problem of Greek poetical expression being fundamentally different from the English.

(f) Our age might not be bad, but I feel it is certainly a difficult period for writing poetry. I would need much more time to make this point clear.