“You are poets, I assume you think metaphorically. Isn’t that the way you read? True or false: the subject or topic of a poem is never really its subject or topic. Robert Frost never wrote a nature poem. He said that. Meaning: there’s more to me than trees and birds. Meaning: there’s more to trees and birds and I know that, so that means there’s more to me, too.”

Source:

• Ruefle, Mary. Madness, Rack and Honey: Collected Lectures. Seattle: Wave Books, 2012. Print. p. 55.