When I began to dare to be clear, because I think clarity is the real risk in poetry because you are exposed. You're out in the open field. You're actually saying things that are comprehensible, and it's easy to criticize something you can understand.

I think my poems are slightly underrated by the word accessible.

I think more influential than Emily Dickinson or Coleridge or Wordsworth on my imagination were Warner Brothers, Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes cartoons.

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

Poetry is like standing on the edge of a lake on a moonlit night and the light of the moon is always pointing straight at you.

One of these days I'm-a make me a book out of you.

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