Poet Alone

The Art of Poetry No. 91

Interviewed by Sarah Fay
Issue 175, Fall/Winter 2005


INTERVIEWER
Is being childless good for a poet?


JACK GILBERT
I could never have lived my life
the way I have if I had children.
There used to be a saying
that every baby is a failed novel.
I couldn't have roamed
or taken so many chances
or lived a life of deprivation.
I couldn't have wasted
great chunks of my life.
But that would be a mistake
for other people.

Posted over on The Paris Review