Bob Dylan: The Song Talk Interview
By: Paul Zollo
Date: 1991
Dylan: [Pause] Sometimes. It’s within me. It’s within me to put myself up and be a poet. But it’s a dedication. [Softly] It’s a big dedication. [Pause] Poets don’t drive cars. [Laughs] Poets don’t go to the supermarket. Poets don’t empty the garbage. Poets aren’t on the PTA. Poets, you know, they don’t go picket the Better Housing Bureau, or whatever. Poets don’t… Poets don’t even speak on the telephone. Poets don’t even talk to anybody. Poets do a lot of listening and… and usually they know why they’re poets! [Laughs] Yeah, there are… what can you say? The world don’t need any more poems, it’s got Shakespeare. There’s enough of everything. You name it, there’s enough of it. There was too much of it with electricity , maybe, some people said that. Some people said lightbulb was going too far. Poets live on the land. They behave in a gentlemanly way. And live by their own gentlemanly code. [Pause] And die broke. Or drown in lakes. Poets usually have very unhappy endings. Look at Keats’ life. Look at Jim Morrison , if you want to call him a poet. Look at him. Although some people say that he is really in the Andes.
ST: Do you think so?
Dylan: Well, it never crossed my mind to think one way or the other about it, but you do hear that talk. Piggyback in the Andes. Riding a donkey.
Jim Morrison on Bob Dylan
The only time I heard Jim mention music at FSU was at a party. He said, “I want you to hear this guy. He’s really great.” Jim put on this record by a singer nobody had ever heard of. It was Bob Dylan.
Source
https://www.interferenza.net/bcs/interw/1991zollo.htm
https://www.expectingrain.com/discussions/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=13056