I have become infected, now that I see how beautifully a book is coming out of all this.

The scholars and poets of an earlier time can be read only with a dictionary to help.

Poetry is the harnessing of the paradox of earth cradling life and then entombing it.

Poetry is a dance music measuring buck-and-wing follies along with the gravest and stateliest dead-marches.

Poetry is a diary kept by a sea creature who lives on land and wishes he could fly.

I remember the Chillicothe ballplayers grappling the Long Island ball players in a sixteen-inning game ended by darkness. And the shoulders of the Chillicothe players were a red smoke against the sundown and the shoulders of the Rock Island players were a yellow smoke against the sundown. And the umpire's voice was hoarse calling balls and strikes and outs and the umpire's throat fought in the dust for a song.

Give me hunger, pain and want, Shut me out with shame and failure From your doors of gold and fame, Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger! But leave me a little love.