Poetry can be fun. One of my very first reviews 40 years ago, for my first book, A Gopher in the Garden, said that there’s an old Greek idea about learning through laughing. I don’t remember who said it. I don’t remember who reviewed the book, and the reviewer didn’t remember where the quote was from, but I’ve always kept that in mind. So, I’m conscious that I am teaching things. I’m certainly teaching vocabulary, because I don’t condescend. I use very complex vocabulary in some of my poems. Words like “mucilaginous” and “gelatinous” and “eviscerate,” “evaporate.” In the dragon poem that I wrote last night, I got to put in a six-syllable word: “inextinguishable.”
I like to laugh, and I want to make other people laugh. That’s really what I’m trying to do. I just happen to be able to make those things rhyme.
Would I have been better off writing prose? I don’t think so. There are plenty of people that do it so much better than I do, or could. I’m really happy to do what I’m doing.
