katherinedecember29:

Matthew Rohrer: This is probably the most odious thing that can happen, when something strange or impossible or unrealistic happens in a poem and it’s called unrealistic or just wacky. Like when someone says, ‘what was this guy on when he wrote this?’ I become speechless with rage. I’m not even talking about it being said about my work, I’m talking about that reaction to anything. I think that is such a hideous discounting of any act of the imagination. Certainly plenty of works produced over the span of history have been influenced by drugs. But let’s face it, there are a lot of people out there smoking marijuana and not very many of them are producing great work. It is not like marijuana makes you instantly an artist. It just seems like such an insidious way to undercut the contribution of the individual, to take away the fact that the artist’s imagination alone is the contribution itself.”

(Source: kdecember)