I was unnerved to learn in my twenties that the poems of Emily Dickinson that I had memorized as a girl were not the poems as she had written them.

I like art history and art criticism. Leo Steinberg has always been my favorite. Hes very original, very accurate and acute.

For the critic, criticism is a form of natural self-expression, as poetry is to the poet. So, for a critic, criticism is a true thing. Criticism isn’t written for poets, it’s written for other readers. One hopes it is true for other readers if it’s true for oneself.

When I first heard Wallace Stevens voice, it was by chance: a friend wanted to listen to the recording he had made for the Harvard Vocarium Series.

Each poem leads you to the questions it makes sense to ask it.

You don’t read or overhear the voice in the poem, you are the voice in the poem.

There are not many poets whose fame rests on a single work.