Poems with Backbone

Watercolor painting of daisies with rock pile

“A poem should consist of two parts rocks, one part daisy. . . . If the rocks aren’t in the poem, you won’t be able to appreciate the daisy.  And if you take out the rocks, so all that’s left is daisy, well, that’s all that’s left.  It’s not so yellow anymore.  It wilts.  You want hard language to convey soft thought, because in the end all poetry is about love, and no one wants love without backbone.”
— Roger Rosenblatt, from Thomas Murphy