“I don't think the creative writing industry has helped American poetry.”
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What actually makes poetry poetry is of course impossible to define. We recognize it when we hear it, when we see it, but we can't define it.
Our most famous writers are Faulkner and Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor. It would make sense that the poetry would reflect some of those same values, some of the same techniques.
I love to compare different time frames. Poetry can evoke the time of the subject. By a very careful choice of words you can evoke an era, completely throw the poem into a different time scale.
Teaching writing over the years intrudes on your own writing in important ways, taking away some of the excitement of poetry.