Poets should ignore most criticism and get on with making poetry.

Yes, I do often write poems from the mind, but I hope I don't ignore feelings and emotions.

There comes a time when you have to trust your own judgment, when you must close your eyes and let your instinct rule you.

Poets should ignore most criticism and get on with making poetry.

I play with language a great deal in my poems, and I enjoy that. I try to condense language, that is, I try to express complicated but I hope real emotions as simply as possible. But that doesn't mean the poems are simple, just that they are as truthful as I can make them.

Blackbirds are the cellos of the deep farms.

I dislike literary jargon and never use it. Criticism has only one function and that is to help readers read and understand literature. It is not a science, it is an aid to art.