"Reading [Charles] North, one wants to reassure him—it’s all there, what you put in the poem comes through [...] I want to say it to North even when he’s quoting other poets, which he does better than practically anybody: 'It wasn’t Wallace Stevens who said, “They have cut off my head, and picked out all the letters of the alphabet—all the vowels and consonants—and brought them out through my ears; and then they want me to write poetry! I can’t do it!” It was John Clare. Wallace Stevens said—something like—the best poems are the ones you meant to write. That has a nice sound but it’s hard to see how he or anyone would know that.'" Jordan Davis • The Constant Critic

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