The great poems are not about experience, but are the experience itself, felt in the body.

Poetry is a break for freedom.

You must learn one thing. The world was made to be free in. Give up all the other worlds Except the one in which you belong.

Some things cannot be spoken or discovered until we have been stuck, incapacitated, or blown off course for awhile. Plain sailing is pleasant, but you are not going to explore many unknown realms that way.

Poetry is a street fighter. It has sharp elbows. It can look after itself. Poetry can't be used for manipulation; it's why you never see good poetry in advertising.

The workplace needs the poet's gift. But the poet also needs to be educated about the workplace. You're not just coming in to do your art, you're actually making yourself vulnerable. You yourself are not God's gift to truth. You have to hazard yourself in their world, especially because you're inviting people to do the same. It's all about become visible, becoming incarnate, becoming here and now and yet with our eyes on a future horizon; holding the conversation you were meant to hold.

Eventually we realize that not knowing what to do is just as real and just as useful as knowing what to do. Not knowing stops us from taking false directions. Not knowing what to do, we start to pay real attention. Just as people lost in the wilderness, on a cliff face or in a blizzard pay attention with a kind of acuity that they would not have if they thought they knew where they were. Why? Because for those who are really lost, their life depends on paying real attention. If you think you know where you are, you stop looking.