Words can do wonderful things. They pound, purr. They can urge, they can wheedle, whip, whine. They can sing, sass, singe. They can churn, check, channelize. They can be a "Hup two three four." They can forge a fiery army of a hundred languid men.

No man can give me any word but Wait.

... sometimes you have to deal / Devilishly with drowning men in order to swim them to shore.

When I start writing a poem, I don't think about models or about what anybody else in the world has done.

The music is in minors.

Art is a refining and evocative translation of the materials of the world.

It frightens me to realize that, if I had died before the age of fifty, I would have died a 'Negro' fraction.