"I look for poetry in English because it's the only language I read"

Prelutsky’s line acknowledges the simple truth that poetry is inseparable from comprehension. The music of a poem matters, but meaning travels on the vessel of language, and the vessel must be one the reader can steer. To “look for poetry” is to assume it is discoverable, not guaranteed; the search happens within the terrain one knows best. English, for him, is not a universal standard but a home ground, where nuance, tone, and the delicate shiver of a single word can be felt without translation.

It also gestures toward the limits and possibilities of translation. Poetry survives translation, but it never arrives intact; puns fracture, rhythms shift, cultural echoes soften. A poet who relies on soundplay and subtle cadence trusts the ear trained by a mother tongue. By seeking poetry in English, he honors the precision of what he can hear fully. This is less an exclusion of other languages than a confession of fidelity to what he can read with depth rather than guesswork.

There is an ethic of accessibility here. The statement dismantles the notion that poetry requires rare languages or specialized learning. It invites readers to search where they are most fluent, in menus and street signs, in playground slang, in lyrical essays and whispered apologies. The act of looking becomes democratic. Anyone with words they truly understand owns a doorway into poetry.

At the same time, the line hints at creative constraint as a source of richness. English is not a narrow field; it is a sprawling ecosystem of dialects, borrowings, and histories. To plumb its depths is to travel widely within one language. The admission of limit becomes a promise of attention: better to listen deeply in one tongue than to skim many. The stance values clarity, intimacy, and the lived textures of language, reminding us that poetry begins where our ears can genuinely hear.