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But for a few phrases from his letters and an odd line or two of his verse, the poet walks gagged through his own biography.

The real biographies of poets are like those of birds, almost identical - their data are in the way they sound. A poet's biography lies in his twists of language, in his meters, rhymes, and metaphors.

For what is a poem but a hazardous attempt at self-understanding: it is the deepest part of autobiography.

As things are, and as fundamentally they must always be, poetry is not a career, but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing.

Poets can't resist the dramatic pull of their lives and so inevitably write autobiographical verse.

Poetry is what I've done my whole life. And every important thing in my life had found itself into poems.

To know anything of a poet but his poetry is, so far as the poetry is concerned, to know something that may be entertaining, even delightful, but is certainly inessential.

I don't try to call myself a poet. But I know that my stuff is pretty literal, in that the themes are pretty simple and on the surface.

A poet is never one of the people. He is detached, remote, and the life of small-time dances and talk about football would not be for him. He might take part but could not belong.

The reason a poet is a poet is to write poems, not to advertise himself as a poet.