The world is a tough place to live in and for the poet it can be unbearable. In all this spin of human endeavor the poet-man is fated to dwell on the outskirts of humankind. The poet more than any other figure in all of human time is the only being unstained by dark, monstrous, unforgivable deeds—and yet he lives as though he were exiled from life by life. It is a lonely, laborious, unrewarding place—that necessary outskirt….
I doubt that the poets of yesteryear had as hard and as awkward a time as does the poet today and I doubt the poet of today will have had it as hard and as awkward as the poet to come. It is the poet, now, and not the poem, that must become a work of art—that must be lovely and perfect. The times demand that the poet—that is, man—be as true as a poem.
Gregory Corso, 1964
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