Twee fragmenten uit een
interview met John Ashbery op Guernica, a magazine of art and politics:
I remember how excited I was when my tutor at Harvard assigned me James's Wings of the Dove, perhaps his most difficult book. My feeling was, "Gosh, this is really hard to read, but I'm sure I'll have learned something by the time I finish." And I did. Though it would be impossible to summarize in a few sentences. Somehow the word "accessible" never turned up in discussions of poetry in that era.
My feeling is that most political poetry is preaching to the choir, and that the people who are going to make the political changes in our lives are not the people who read poetry, unfortunately. Poetry not specifically aimed at political revolution, though, is beneficial in moving people toward that kind of action, as well as other kinds of action. A good poem makes me want to be active on as many fronts as possible.