But how can you really care if anybody gets it, or gets what it means, or if it improves them. Improves them for what? for death? Why hurry them along? Too many poets act like a middle-aged mother trying to get her kids to eat too much cooked meat, and potatoes with drippings (tears). I donıt give a damn whether they eat or not. Forced feeding leads to excessive thinness (effete). Nobody should experience anything they donıt need to, if they donıt need poetry bully for them, I like the movies too. After all, only Whitman and Crane and Williams, of the American poets, are better than the movies. As for measure and other technical apparatus, thatıs just common sense: if youıre going to buy a of pants you want them to be tight enough so everyone will want to go to bed with you. Thereıs nothing metaphysical about it. Unless of course, you flatter yourself into thinking that what youıre experiencing is "yearning."
--Frank O'Hara, from "Personism: A Manifesto"
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