charles simic II
The way Don Juan adored different kind of women I adored different kind of poets. I went to bed, so to speak, with ancient Chinese, old Romans, French Symbolists, and American Modernists individually and in groups. I was so promiscuous. I'd be lying if I pretended that I had just one great love.
Who do you show your work to before you send it out to magazines?
I show it to Wallace Stevens and Emily Dickinson. If I catch them making faces, I hop back under the blankets and scribble some more.
When did you first feel what Pound called "the impulse" to write?
When I noticed in high school that one of my friends was attracting the best-looking girls by writing them sappy love poems.
Where do you find your inspiration these days?
Piece of cake. One needs inspiration to write when one is twenty. At the age of sixty, there's the mess of one's entire life and little time remaining to worry about.