There's a lot of unconscious activity that goes on I think in the composition of a poem.

It's a good thing to get poetry off the shelves and more into public life.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe there was nothing under my skin but light. If you cut me I could shine.

I stared up at the ebbing quarter moon and the stars scattered like a handful of salt across the faraway sky.

The poem is not, as someone put it, deflective of entry. But the real question is, 'What happens to the reader once he or she gets inside the poem?' That's the real question for me, is getting the reader into the poem and then taking the reader somewhere, because I think of poetry as a kind of form of travel writing.

You will always be the bread and the knife, not to mention the crystal goblet and—somehow—the wine.

It is as if one by one, the memories you used to harbor decided to retire to the Southern Hemisphere of the brain.