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After the last line of a poem, nothing follows except literary criticism.

Only the poet can look beyond the detail and see the whole picture.

Every good poet includes a critic, but the reverse is not true.

A poet must leave traces of his passage, not proof.

You do not become a critic until it has been completely established to your own satisfaction that you cannot be a poet.

Robert Frost had always said you mustn't think of the last line first, or it's only a fake poem, not a real one. I'm inclined to agree.

The poet exposes himself to the risk. All that has been said about poetry, all that he has learned about poetry, is only a partial assurance.

The importance of poetry is not measured, finally, by what the poet says but by how he says it.

I have never believed that the critic is the rival of the poet, but I do believe that criticism is a genre of literature or it does not exist.