Ultimately you're trying to reach across and find some other person, some other human warmth. But it is, especially in written poetry, it is inscribed in a text and the text can't do that work by itself and you as a poet can only do your best.

There's never been a culture without poetry in the history of the world. In every culture, in every language there is expressive play, expressive word play, there's language use to different purposes that we would call poetry.

A stress on the system and I think a painful thing for many young poets who are looking to find a life in poetry that they're not going to be able to find.

And what I've found over time is that for me to write a poem that I think is worthy that I can live with, two things have to happen.

Sometimes the title comes to you at the beginning, sometimes it comes at the end. The very best way in my experience is when it comes in the middle.

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.

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.