"A life is not sufficiently elevated for poetry, unless, of course, the life has been made into an ar..." — Mark Strand

And at least in poetry you should feel free to lie. That is, not to lie, but to imagine what you want, to follow the direction of the poem.

And Robert Lowell, of course - in his poems, we're not located in his actual life. We're located more in the externals, in the journalistic facts of his life.

For some of us, the less said about the way we do things the better.

From the reader's view, a poem is more demanding than prose.