"I gravitate toward poems that occur as books, and it was French letters that brought home to me this possibility. Formally, such poems begin in unfolding and finish in the bodily gesture of unfurling. Or overflowing. Thus, they're based on excess, on the self's exceeding the self. The poem is the excess; it's the abundance that won't fit into the book, which makes the book necessary." Cole Swensen • Double Change

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