twenty-fifth poem

P.S.: Do you in constructing your books generally have that idea of coherence in mind?

Wright: Every time. Did I mention to you Robert Frost's remark — it is a very Horatian remark — that if you have a book of twenty-four poems, the book itself should be the twenty-fifth? And I have tried that every time, every time.

—James Wright, interview with Peter Stitt, James Wright: A Profile (Logbridge-Rhodes, Inc., 1988) edited by Frank Graziano and Peter Stitt.