The secret wish of poetry is to stop time.

The highest levels of consciousness are wordless.

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.

In their effort to divorce language and experience, deconstructionist critics remind me of middle-class parents who do not allow their children to play in the street.

I left parts of myself everywhere, The way absent-minded people leave Gloves and umbrellas Whose colors are sad from dispensing so much bad luck

Insomnia is an all-night travel agency with posters advertising faraway places.

There’s no preparation for poetry.