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PARTISAN REVIEW
feel that for art's sake distance should be there. But not too
much. I don't want personas with emotion in the basement
either.
Remnick:
Isn't sentimentality a dominant problem in peo–
ple's first efforts?
Wright:
Yes, I think you have to know the difference be–
tween sentiment and sentimentality. It's a little like jazz-if you
don't know what it is, I can't explain it to you. Again, it comes
with practice, 4nd reading, and someone pointing out to you
what is sentimental. It's good practice because it becomes an
emotional value. I keep going back to him, but Pound said
"Poetry is the verbal express ion of an emotional value." The
key word, of course, is
value.
Some things are more valuable
emotionally than others .
What will distinguish the possible poet from the non–
possible poet is this love of language, because that is something
that goes above and beyond a need to say something like, "My
boyfriend went out with someone else and smoked a reefer and
now I feel so bad I'm going to write this poem." Language is
beyond that. Of course I keep talking about language. Poetry is
not all language. What is important is what is being said-I
know that-but without language it's a long dark road.
Also, to get back to sentimentality, you can't ask for an
emotional response. You must elicit the emotion from the
reader of the poem. The poem has to elicit the response.
It
becomes an object that you create and out of that has to come
the response. You are not being morally fair with the poem
when you are imposing on the poem; the poem takes on a life of
its own once it gets started. It does the work, you can't do the
work for it.
Remnick:
Do you recall the composition of " Delta Traveller"?
Wright:
I was in Laguna Beach, California, in a little shack
in the backyard of our house in which I used to write. I had
written "Tattoos" and "Skins" and I knew I wanted to write a
poem about my mother and one about my father. As most of my
poems do, "Delta Traveller" probably started with a rhythm
rather than a structure. This was at a time when my son was two
or three years old, and I had very few stretches of writing time. I
would have maybe an hour or so that I could sneak in before I
had to help out. That's why the poem came out in those little
