When poems are no good they don't make any sense.

Damn wind shift sudden as a woman mind.

The classics can console. But not enough.

The voice does go up in a poem. It is an address, even if it is to oneself.

I know when dark-haired evening put on her bright silk at sunset, and, folding the sea sidled under the sheet with her starry laugh, that there'd be no rest, there'd be no forgetting. Is like telling mourners round the graveside about resurrection, they want the dead back.

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 truest writers are those who see language not as a linguistic process but as a living element.