I think it’s, in a sense, laughable to say that any poetry is impersonal, because the motive is terribly personal. And if you wind up writing about a cup, there is some personal reason that you’re writing about that, and some personal way that you’re approaching its dimension, or color, or placement in the universe. We can’t hide ourselves. That’s the truth. No poetry, however apparently impersonal, allows us to hide. And if you have hidden, you’ve really failed. I mean, it means that you’ve been opaque. It means that you have perhaps written something that’s already been written. Because, then your words would be hidden directly behind somebody else’s words. They wouldn’t exist independently. There’s no hiding.

-Kay Ryan