I am an ordinary human being who is impelled to write poetry. ... I still do feel that a poet has a duty to words, and that words can do wonderful things, and it's too bad to just let them lie there without doing anything with and for them.

We don't ask a flower any special reason for its existence. We just look at it and are able to accept it as being something different from ourselves.

It is brave to be involved

Be yourself. Don't imitate other poets. You are as important as they are.

I tell poets that when a line just floats into your head, don't pay attention 'cause it probably has floated into somebody else's head.

When you love a man, he becomes more than a body. His physical limbs expand, and his outline recedes, vanishes. He is rich and sweet and right. He is part of the world, the atmosphere, the blue sky and the blue water.

The music is in minors.