Robert Duncan

[from Robert Duncan's "From a Notebook," The Poetics of the New American Poetry, edited by Donald Allen and Warren Tallman, 1973]

I am willing to pursue this art in search of itself, because for the time I have shaken off the insistent hounds of the critical posse. I have returned to the privacy of my craft and find that if I am my own judge I will allow the full play. As far as I can go gives me life again on the page.

. . . I have not time to solicit the good opinion of those who feel chummy: I have no time for the possibilities of success. Each fulfillment precludes it.

And a sense of perspective again -- that making history, even writing a great poem, is out of the way. I don't want it. When I turn to my own vein, I see it is all very questionable -- but the full joy of dancing there is enough.

The Poetics of the New American Poetry