McDonald


 But as a "formal" poet myself I am uneasy in this realm
of newly popular poetry. I desperately want Caribbean
poets to close the gap between ordinary people and
poetry. I hate the idea of poets in their ivory towers.
I loathe the thought that nobody should learn and love
poetry except poets themselves and teachers of poetry.
But I am very doubtful that I myself can ever join the
performance poetry bandwagon. So I hope my own poetry
can somehow fit in somewhere between the "formal, unread"
and the "fashionable, dub."

 I want poetry to gain influence by telling truth,
giving pleasure, and creating fascination. Like all
art, poetry must be inextricably bound up with giving
pleasure and stimulating the ordinary imagination.
If a poet loses his pleasure-seeking audience he has lost
the audience most worth having. I believe that profoundly.
I cannot get out of my mind some lines written by Osip
Mandelstam that great poet who lived and died in
difficult times:

 The people need poetry that will be their own secret
 To keep them awake forever
 And bathe them in the bright-haired wave
 Of its breathing.


Ian McDonald