When I show those who are not poetry readers the Stafford poem, show it and try to explain how it works, they usually become thoughtful. I want them to be thoughtful, not to knock me down and run for the nearest exit. I think that's the best we can hope for - that a lot of people become thoughtful. That seems to me the first step toward serious argument and useful action. Form, in its deepest sense, is selection.
True form is the product of an extraordinary vision.
There's a lizard at the bomb testing site. The poem is an attempt to measure everything according to the duration and intensity of that little life. The naked world. The innocent lizard. A most primitive form of life.