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They say poets write mostly for themselves; if anyone else likes it, well and good, if not, it doesn't matter; certainly, not to me.

Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.

I don't know if younger poets read a lot of, you know, the poets - the established poets. There was a lot of pretty boring stuff to sort of put up with and to add to, to make something vital from.

I have the feeling that a lot of poets writing now are - they sort of tap dance through it.

I've always been a fan of poetry. I grew up with Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the Beat poets. I really followed that stuff for a while. I just love the way people threw words around like they were painting.

I think that is where poetry reading becomes such an individual thing. I mean I have friend who like poets who just don't say anything to me at all, I mean they seem to me rather ordinary and pedestrian.

The thing about good writing is it has a music to it.

I think that most people who write about music just want to fill some paper. They're not really interested in getting to the heart of something. Otherwise, they wouldn't write what they write.

When I was in college, I used to write little ditties and short stories and poetry for my friends. Writing a book is another thing. It is so much different from my traditional day of dirty fingernails and greasy hair and hot pans.

Writing poetry makes you intensely conscious of how words sound, both aloud and inside the head of the reader. You learn the weight of words and how they sound to the ear.