I didn't sit down then and start writing poems, but it was in the back of my mind.

And a lot of poetry is putting yourself back into the state of wonder that you have before things when you're a child. It's not only a joyous wonder, it's sometimes a grief stricken wonder.

I did not know the work of mourning Is a labor in the dark We carry inside ourselves

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

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.

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.

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.