I consider a poem to be a kind of experiment where a number of elements are brought together under test conditions to see how they will interact to create meaning or relevance.
I have been told by a member of the board of one of Canada's most prominent literary magazines that a submission of mine once caused a great deal of controversy.
Reading should be a repeat performance.
I feel very connected to poets across the country.
The point of an experiment is not to arrive at a predetermined end point, to prove or disprove anything, but to deliver a poem that reveals much about the process taken.
I have always been very obsessed with time. Time's passage makes us all very vulnerable and because we all experience it in our own way, it can make us feel very alone.
Poetry is but another form of inquiry into the nature of phenomena, using with its own unique procedures and tools.
Poets have to be sensitive to their audience, but it does not mean that they censor themselves. I realise my audience is diverse. Some will read with empathy and curiosity while others will take offense.
The reader's challenge is to replicate the experiment by reading the poem and to draw their own conclusions.
No poem is easily grasped; so why should any reader expect fast results?
I find it exhausting to administer a magazine without an office or paid staff.
My obsession with time informs my poetry so completely it is hard for me to summarize it. We want time to pass, for new things to happen to us, we want to hold on to certain moments, we don't want our lives to end.
A literary journal is intended to connect writer with reader; the role of the editor is to mediate.
Most victims of my autobiographical verse are either far too polite, remarkably understanding unaware that I have written poems about them.
The experiment of the poem is mostly intuitive. I write the first draft, pulling in the various elements that interest me, in the hope that their being combined will lead to some kind of insight.
To me many short poems read and write like beginnings that simply whet my appetite; I want to get over that.
The poet must decide not to impose his feelings in order to write without sentimentality.
Some readers allow their prejudices to blind them. A good reader knows how to disregard inappropriate responses.
The community of poets I belong to is not as close as it used to be, if only for the fact that our lives have become busier: jobs, children, and the like.
Poets can't resist the dramatic pull of their lives and so inevitably write autobiographical verse.
I would not say I chose to write long poems on a conscious level. The long poem has been a relative constant.
An experienced reader uses the poem as an agent of inquiry. This makes poetry very exciting, unstable, and interactive.
Who is the ideal reader? God only knows.
You can never step into the same book twice, because you are different each time you read it.
We are comfortable with the fact that we cannot know personally what happened in the world before we were born, yet we are uncomfortable with the notion that we will stop engaging with time at some point in the future.
Sometimes poetry is inspired by the conversation entered into by reading other poems.
John Barton (born 1957) is a Canadian poet.
