I don’t write poetry when I wish, I write when I can’t, when my larynx is flooded and my throat is shut.

Poetry is a presentiment of the truth.

I don’t write poetry when I wish, I write when I can’t, when my larynx is flooded and my throat is shut.

Writing down your thoughts is both necessary and harmful. It leads to eccentricity, narcissism, preserves what should be let go. On the other hand, these notes intensify the inner life, which, left unexpressed, slips through your fingers. If only I could find a better kind of journal, humbler, one that would preserve the same thoughts, the same flesh of life, which is worth saving.

I have no talent. I write poems for myself, to think things through, that’s all.

Letters of the condemned. Last words scratched on a cell’s wall. To write like that.

Even a painful longing is some form of presence.