I've been trying to come to terms with what I am and what I do and what I believe in. And I see that I'm not happy with - well, it's almost as if being a poet is not enough for me. It's too late for me to do more now. I did what I could in a small way. I did it as theater, too, to be honest.

The act of writing itself isn't outrageous. And the institution subtly and insidiously works on you in such a way that though you seem to have freedom you become a servant. Your main issue is to get promoted to the next thing. Or get invited to a picnic. Or get tenure. Or get laid.

All of a sudden I understand why I like Aliki Barnstones poems so much. They remind me of the one she has studied most - shall we call her her master - Emily Dickinson. Not in the forms, not, as such, in the music, and not in the references; but in that weird intimacy, that eerie closeness, that absolute confession of soul.... In Barnstone, too, the two worlds are intensely present, and the voice moves back and forth between them. She has the rare art of distance and closeness. It gives her her fine music, her wisdom, her form. She is a fine poet.

If the Buddhist's job is to be detached, I think that the artist's job is to be both detached and attached.

I've spent hundreds of hours working over words, and part of me, a large part of me, has a desire to do something else.

I will look at the footprints going in and out of the water and dream up a small blue good to talk to.

Humor is not funny. Humor is something else. Funny is a joke, sometimes silly. Comedy is deep and connected to tragedy; comedy could be deeper than tragedy, in my view.