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Well, if this is poetry, I'm certainly never going to write any myself.

The Vietnam War and the Iraq war, in different ways, both made me feel like I could not not address them. I'm very doubtful about the usefulness of poetry to do that.

But I am not political in the current events sense, and I have never wanted anyone to read my poetry that way.

Poetry can tell us about what's going on in our lives - not only our personal but our social and political lives.

A lot of young poets today, from what I've heard and experienced, can't get their heads past George W. Bush, and I've heard so many poems about this democracy and this era of politics that I'm kind of bored by it.

I despair of ever writing excellent poetry.

There have been two popular subjects for poetry in the last few decades: the Vietnam War and AIDS, about both of which almost all of us have felt deeply.

For better or worse, poetry is my life.

The reason one writes poems is so that your poem will be remembered.

I don't think I've ever read poetry, ever.