I put down these memorandums of my affections in honor of tenderness, in honor of all of those who have been conscripted into the brotherhood of loss.

I think fiction goes to poetry for the intensity of its use of language.

That you write a phrase or you think of something and it seems to have a deeper charge because the title has to be some kind of marker, something setting out a space, creating a space for what's going to come.

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 sometimes you look at the first poems by someone and you go, "They have freshness and a sense of wonder that is never recaptured again by that poet."

Now, the process of writing poetry is very messy. Not systematic, never quite the same

I would keep in mind to a young poet that you are entering into something that is very important, that has always been important in terms of human concerns.