Once every five hundred years or so, a summary statement about poetry comes along that we can't imagine ourselves living without

A poem generated by its own laws may be unrealized and bad in terms of so-called objective principles of taste, judgement, deduction.

To be saved is here, local and mortal

If a poem is each time new, then it is necessarily an act of discovery, a chance taken, a chance that may lead to fulfillment or disaster

I am grateful for - though I can't keep up with - the flood of articles, theses, and textbooks that mean to share insight concerning the nature of poetry.

Is it not careless to become too local when there are four hundred billion stars in our galaxy alone.

With the first step, the number of shapes the walk might take is infinite, but then the walk begins to define itself as it goes along, though freedom remains total with each step: any tempting side road can be turned into an impulse, or any wild patch of woods can be explored. The pattern of the walk is to come true, is to be recognized, discovered.