I was very committed to the process of composing, working at poems, putting things together and taking them apart like some kind of experimental filmmaker.

I didn't think about whether I was writing poems. I was thinking. And the more I was thinking, the more there was I didn't understand.

I hardly remember how I started to write poetry. It's hard to imagine what I thought poetry could do.

For several centuries what has passed for song in literary circles was any text that looked like the lyrics for a commonplace melodic setting.

The Sophists' paradoxical talk pieces and their public debates were entertainment in 5th century Greece. And in that world, Socrates was an entertainer.

I have spoken to expert audiences occasionally, but then no audience is expert over the whole range of things I want to explore.

You pay your money, you take your choice. I get the audience my language attracts and I lose the ones it repels.