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I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering.

I think there is a poem out there for everyone, to be an entrance into the poetry and a relationship with it.

I don't think poetry is something that can be taught. We can encourage young writers, but what you can't teach them is the very essence of poetry.

We all need poetry. The moments in our lives that are characterized by language that has to do with necessity or the market, or just, you know, things that take us away from the big questions that we have, those are the things that I think urge us to think about what a poem can offer.

I would come to understand there is no poem separable from its source. I began to see that poems are not just an individual florescence. They are also a vast root system growing down into ideas and understandings. Almost unbidden, they tap into the history and evolution of art and language.

I've been writing a lot of poetry recently. It helps me think and work things out.

Of course a poem is a two-way street. No poem is any good if it doesn't suggest to the reader things from his own mind and recollection that he will read into it, and will add to what the poet has suggested. But I do think poetry readings are very important.

You don't make a poem with ideas, but with words.

And, I mean, I think poetry does need to be met to some extent, especially, I guess, 19th century poetry, and for me, it's just been so worth the effort. It's like I'm planting a garden in my head.

A poem in form still has to have voice, gesture, a sense of discovery, a metaphoric connection, as any poetry does.