Colloquialism - L. Wagner

There were a coupla guys prowling around down here this morning but when they seen me they beat it.

- "The Dawn of Another Day"

All this--

        was for you, old woman.

I wanted to write a poem

  that you would understand . . . .

...(British language) carries over the restricting formulations of that language. They even modify the

thought of the language. The forms modify the thought.

...(Eliot) was giving up America. And maybe my attachment to my father, who was English and who had never become an American citizen influenced me because I was -- You know, the Oedipus complex, between father and son-- I resented him being English and not being American. And that was when Eliot was living in England and had given up America.

On the Poet:

Actually the poet is the happiest of men. He may be stimulated to an extent by unhappiness, thought also by love for the world, that is, to sum up: happiness-- is the basic ground of a poet's makeup. I don't thank unhappiness makes you sing at all, or makes you want to construct something. . . . The man must have an interest, he must have a desire, he must have a passion to make something better in the world than what he sees about him.

On Ezra Pound:

When I was at the University of Pennsylvania, around 1905, I used to argue with Pound. I'd say "bread" and he'd say "caviar." It was a sort of simplification of our positions. once, in 1912 I think it was, in a letter (we were still carrying on our argument) he wrote, "all right, bread." But I guess he went back to caviar.