A poem is a hand, a hook, a prayer. It is a soul in action.

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.

The idea of a poem as a message in a bottle means that it's sent out towards some future reader and the reader who opens that bottle becomes the addressee of the literary text.

Emily Dickinson calls previous poets her kinsmen of the shelf. You can always be consoled by your kinsmen of the shelf and you can participate in poetry by going to them and by trying to make something worthy of them.

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.

And when you are entering into poetry, whatever stage you're at, you are participating in something with a very long and noble tradition.

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.