I have left out what I don't remember or don't know. Temperament, fear, shyness, obedience, kindness.

In America it's a particular problem. The artist, particularly the poet, is just unacknowledged; if I can use that dumb word. Maybe it has always been that way. Maybe the only way he or she can be acknowledged is to be connected with some movement, be it religious or political.

Attachment has to do with suffering, so it's really close to Buddhism, because Buddhism wants to relieve you from suffering; you're supposed to escape from suffering.

I was ruined before I got started. I say ruined, but I could say blessed; I was too far gone to believe in it. And I'm shocked how generation after generation repeats the behavior.

The artist looks for a subject. You know, a lot of new poets don't seem to have a subject. I don't totally understand that.

Oppressed cultures often envy those which are not, or oppressed individuals do, and sometimes those which - and who - are not envy those which - who - are.

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.