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I have frequently noticed in myself a tendency to a diffuse style; a disposition to push my metaphors too far, employing a multitude of words to heighten the patness of the image, and so making of it a conceit rather than a metaphor, a fault copiously illustrated in the poetry of Cowley, Waller, Donne, and others of that ilk.

Metaphor is embodied in language.

Metaphor creates a kind of conceptual synesthesia, in which we understand one concept in the context of another.

The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one: dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation. I don't think I solve problems in my poetry; I think I uncover the problems.

There's something so wonderful about writing in rhyme where it isn't just the meaning of the words, it's the music to the words and the shape and the sound.

I think writing a poem is like being a greyhound. Writing a novel is like being a mule. You go up one long row, then down another, and try not to look up too often to see how far you still have to go.

I've gotten very alert not just to mixed metaphor but to any writing mistake.

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

Poets deal in writing about feelings and trying to find the language and images for intense feelings.