I just think that limits the kinds of experiences that people can have with poetry. But, poetry will survive; I don't worry about that. But, I do think that it may save fewer souls if people can't pay attention.

Gertrude Stein said, "I write for myself and strangers." I would say I write for myself, strangers and the great dead.

Scholars of the Hebrew bible define something they call wisdom literature and I would say clearly the poetry of wisdom is something that comes with age or that might come with age which has to do with reflecting on experience.

And when I'm writing well and when I'm inside the feeling, then I can do fairly complicated things with some fluency.

I think one of the things that distinguished my work from the beginning when I was in college was my turning towards poetry from other countries.

I think it's true that that's something that poetry can go to school on fiction. I think poetry can go to fiction to learn.

In Náhuatl, the language of the Aztec world, one key word for poet was 'tlamatine,' meaning 'the one who knows,' or 'he who knows something.' Poets were considered 'sages of the word,' who meditated on human enigmas and explored the beyond, the realm of the gods.