But I am not political in the current events sense, and I have never wanted anyone to read my poetry that way.

I think that great poetry is the most interesting and complex use of the poet's language at that point in history, and so it's even more exciting when you read a poet like Yeats, almost 100 years old now, and you think that perhaps no one can really top that.

There are rituals not structures for being a poet, drinking too much, taking too many drugs, being a lady chaser, having your nervous breakdown, being irresponsible about money.

Poetry is the art of saying what you mean but disguising it.

American poetry, like American painting, is always personal with an emphasis on the individuality of the poet.

I'm passing on a tradition of which I am part. There's a long line of poets who went before me, and I'm another one, and I'm hoping to pass that on to other younger, or newer, poets than myself.

But I am not political in the current events sense, and I have never wanted anyone to read my poetry that way.