Let me walk through the fields of paper touching with my wand dry stems and stunted butterflies.

You have come to the shore. There are no instructions.

The poem has a social effect of some kind whether or not the poet wills it to have. It has a kenetic force, it sets in motion...elements in the reader that would otherwise remain stagnant.

Nothing we do has the quickness, the sureness, the deep intelligence living at peace would have.

Breathe the sweetness that hovers in August.

Prophetic utterance, like poetic utterance, transforms experience and moves the receiver to new attitudes. The kinds of experience--the recognitions or revelations--out of which both prophecy and poetry emerge, are such as to stir the prophet or poet to speech that may exceed their own known capacities; they are "inspired," they breathe in revelation and breathe out new words; and by so doing they transfer over to the listener or reader a parallel experience, a parallel intensity, which impels that person into new attitudes and new actions.

The artist must create himself or be born again.