One could say that artists are people who think naturally in highly patterned ways.

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 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.

The non-artists among us are always terribly busy, but finally disappear without a trace.

One could say that artists are people who think naturally in highly patterned ways.

All good poets of the past, almost without exception, were at least bilingual if not trilingual.