Here in the United States, we speak with reverence of authentic experience. We write poems about our daddies taking us fishing and breaking our hearts by making us throw the little fish back into the river. We even tell the reader the kind of car we were driving, the year and the model, to give the impression that it’s all true. It’s because we think of ourselves as journalists of a kind. Like them, we’ll go anywhere for a story. Don’t believe a word of it. As any poet can tell you, one often sees better with eyes closed than with eyes wide open.

He who cannot howl will not find his pack.

If the sky falls they shall have clouds for supper.

The world is beautiful but not sayable. That's why we need art.

Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all others were making ships.

Words make love on the page like flies in the summer heat and the poet is only the bemused spectator.

Found objects, chance creations, ready-mades (mass-produced items promoted into art objects, such as Duchamp's "Fountain"-urinal as sculpture) abolish the separation between art and life. The commonplace is miraculous if rightly seen.