Works of art imitate and provoke other works of art, the process is the source of art itself.

A certain kind of poetry looks back at experience from an older perspective.

I mean, in the history of poetry there have been a lot poetries where you have to inherit the position of poet from your ancestors and I think that if you just leave anyone to become a poet based on an aristocratic society, then a lot of people are left out who might have something to offer.

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.

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

Poetry connects us to what is deepest in ourselves. It gives us access to our own feelings, which are often shadowy, and engages us in the art of making meaning. It widens the space of our inner lives. It is a magical, mysterious, inexplicable (though not incomprehensible) event in language.

Cafeteria-style education, combined with the unwillingness of our schools to place demands on students, has resulted in a steady diminishment of commonly shared information between generations and between young people themselves.