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

I liked teaching Henry James. When you look down at a Henry James novel from a helicopter height, you find an intricate spider web that all clings together.

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.

Twentieth-century American poetry has been one of the glories of modern literature.

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.

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

The art of utterance persuades initially by its music and its rhythm, before semiotic or personal characteristics come into play.