The poet is at the edge of our consciousness of the world, finding beyond the suspected nothingness which we imagine limits our perception another acre or so of being worth our venturing upon.

nothing now exists that is so valuable as whatever theoretically might replace it.

The birds suffer their suffering each in a lifetime, forgetting it as they go.

Art is always the replacement of indifference by attention.

It is worthwhile adding that the power of the poem to teach not only sensibilities and the subtle movements of the spirit but knowledge, real lasting felt knowledge, is going mostly unnoticed among our scholars. The body of knowledge locked into and releasable from poetry can replace practically any university in the Republic. First things first, then: the primal importance of a poem is what it can add to the individual mind.Poetry is the voice of a poet at its birth, and the voice of a people in its ultimate fulfillment as a successful and useful work of art.

I never intended to be a teacher. I just like going to school and learning things.

In curved Einsteinian space we are at all times, technically, looking at the back of our own head.