News at Eleven: Did I expect people to read those poems?

Well, I didn't because I thought nobody would publish them. On the one hand I have always felt the most important thing that a writer should do is to write something that  people will understand. But I also want to write poetry that expresses my usually tangled thoughts without condescending to a reader. How is it possible to have both of these things happen? I sort of hope they somehow will. But I can't be the judge of whether they do or not.

from The Spectator: Interview with a writer: John Ashbery

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