Any arbitrary turning along the way and I would be elsewhere; I would be different.

Poems give you the lives of others and then circle in on your own inner world.

Whatever a guidebook says, wether or not you leave somewhere with a sense of the place is entirely a matter of smell and instinct.

I would like The Discovery of Poetry to be a field guide to the natural pleasures of language - a happiness we were born to have.

All afternoon in the deck chair, I try to describe to my notebook the colors of the water and sky. How to translate sunlight into words?

Any arbitrary turning along the way and I would be elsewhere; I would be different.

When I was twelve, I started reading Eudora Welty, Thomas Wolfe, Flannery O'Connor, James Agee, and - do we dare breathe the name - William Faulkner.