One of the obligations of the writer is to say or sing all that he or she can, to deal with as much of the world as becomes possible to him or her in language.

The world is not with us enough. O taste and see.

Insofar as poetry has a social function it is to awaken sleepers by other means than shock.

When you're really caught up in writing a poem, it can be a form of prayer. I'm not very good at praying, but what I experience when I'm writing a poem is close to prayer. I feel it in different degrees and not with every poem. But in certain ways writing is a form of prayer.

Writing poetry is a process of discovery...you can smell the poem before you see it....Like some animal.

Affliction is more apt to suffocate the imagination than to stimulate it.

There comes a time when only anger is love.