What a poem says..

"What a poem says is not what the words of the poem say."

"The very first thing a poem says is that it is a poem."

"The meaning (of a poem) is in the lilt of the words, in the meter, in the rhyme."

--From translator and poet David Slavitt at his marvelous reading last Friday night.

And there was this as well:

"The point of (reading) literature is not to improve yourself. All reading should be pleasurable, engaging, delightful."