One, something emotional has to be at stake. There has to be something important for me that I'm writing about. And then two, I have to have a formal idea. Something has to be being worked out in poetry.

One, something emotional has to be at stake. There has to be something important for me that I'm writing about. And then two, I have to have a formal idea. Something has to be being worked out in poetry.

It's not important - it's not necessary that you read everything. What is necessary is that you care about things that you read and that you find something that really matters to you and you try and make something like that.

So, it's a continual process of trial and error and then I find things and I throw it out and start again, but I keep writing it over again.

Reading poetry is an adventure in renewal, a creative act, a perpetual beginning, a rebirth of wonder.

As a reader you have a task to do, you have something to do. You bring your experience to it. It's not all inherit in the poem.

I think that's a connection that you can only hope for. It's not something that you can make because it needs someone else.