So, some of the most difficult formal poems that I've written, say one sentence sonnets, I've been able to do those fairly quickly whereas some of the clearest, simplest lyrics that I've written have taken me the longest to get to the clarity of feeling that you're looking for.

think what you hope for is that at different times of your life you're able to write the poetry that reflects the moment that you're in on your own journey.

I don't think poetry will die, but I think that poetry does demand a certain kind of attention to language.

I have the idea that lyric poetry is a poetry that's driven by a sense of the presence of death. That there's something unbearable about the fact that we're going to die and that we can't stand it and I think you find that out in childhood and you don't really - at least I found it out in childhood and I found it hard to get over.

But, the best times I have found, in my life, are late at night or early in the morning and I think it's because you're outside the social realm.

The attention deficit disorder of the culture is very distressing in America now and I think it puts a lot of things at risk, not just poetry.

There's the brilliant audacity of youth that poets strike upon in their earliest work sometimes that they never can hit upon again.