I read; I travel; I become

Time is the metre, memory the only plot.

If you know what you are going to write when you're writing a poem, it's going to be average.

How can I turn from Africa and live?

Americans are not brought up with meter. They're not brought up with poetry. If you try to get them to recite, they're too embarrassed.

The word and the shadow of the word / makes a thing both itself and something else / till we are metaphors and not ourselves . . .

For every poet it is always morning in the world; history a forgotten, insomniac night. The fate of poetry is to fall in love with the world in spite of history.