Sometimes the archaism of the language when it's spoken is why we are all in love with the Irish today.

Poems reveal secrets when they are analyzed. The poet's pleasure in finding ingenious ways to enclose her secrets should be matched by the reader's pleasure in unlocking and revealing these secrets.

Learning to live what you're born with is the process, the involvement, the making of a life.

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.

American poetry is always about defining oneself individually,claiming one's right to be different and often to break taboos.

American poets celebrate their bodies, very specifically, as Whitman did.

Because, in fact, women, feminists, do read my poetry, and they read it often with the power of their political interpretation. I don't care; that's what poetry is supposed to do.