! ! Gertrude Stein Is Interviewed On American Poetry

and there was the knocking on the door that we were expecting and it was the man that we were expecting with the questions we were expecting to which answers were expected by those who expect answers as if life were like that which for writers it is not yes, tea was drunk and after tea the tape recorder set up so that what I said I would continue to say somewhere else even when I changed my mind here and nowhere else and he said Ms Stein what do you think of American poetry and we said well it's American and it's poetry that's as it should be and really that's all there is to say and the man looked disappointed so we asked him did he read poetry and he said poetry no I dont read poetry but my editor does so I said it's really about Americans living their lives that's what American poetry is really about because Americans move around and so their words move around and words in English have lost their intensity but American words are always on the move and they are more intense yes, Americans living among Americans and talking to their neighbours if it's not about that it's not really American poetry at all is it if it's not about that then why bother writing poetry and the man was asking about a rose being a rose being a rose and we said for a hundred years the rose has not been red in poetry but now for the first time in a hundred years the rose is red again and the man looked at his watch and said thank you Ms Stein and was switching off his tape recorder and a month later that was what we said in a magazine much read by Americans who mostly are not poets no very few but we said it we know that this is so because we read it there and we think that really that was all there was to say because that was all we think is really important about American Poetry that the words move like Americans move and that is exciting for a writer and that is the important thing about American Poetry