But Blake's voices returned to dictate revisions.

Baseball, because of its continuity over the space of America and the time of America, is a place where memory gathers.

I don't know where a poem comes from until after I've lived with it a long time. I've a notion that a poem comes from absolutely everything that every happened to you.

Every now and then I meet someone certain of personal greatness. I want to pat this person on the shoulder and mutter comforting words: "Things will get better! You won't always feel so depressed! Cheer up!"

Poetry is what I've done my whole life. And every important thing in my life had found itself into poems.

The greatest kindness would put a bullet in his bright eye.

Virtually every beginning poet hurts himself by an addiction to adjectives. Verbs are by far the most important things for poems-especially wonderful tough monosyllables like "gasp" and "cry." Nouns are the next most important. Adjectives tend to be useless.