I liked the kid who wrote me that he had to do a term paper on a modern poet and he was doing me because, though they say you have to read poems twice, he found he could handle mine in one try.

I never abandoned either forms or freedom. I imagine that most of what could be called free verse is in my first book. I got through that fairly early.

I've thought of the last line of some poems for years and tried them out, It wouldn't work because the last line was much too beautiful for the poem.

I think there's one thing which distinguishes our art - we don't consider. We don't think. We write a little verse because it comes to us.

Robert Frost had always said you mustn't think of the last line first, or it's only a fake poem, not a real one. I'm inclined to agree.

Both poet and painter want to reach the silence behind the language, the silence within the language. Both painter and poet want their work to shine not only in daylight but (by whatever illusionist magic) from within.

This Constitutional Republic called America is an historic aberration. Any honest student of history will note that the prevailing socio-economic system is feudalism, where a tiny minority control the vast majority of wealth, power, and resources. In doing so, they have absolute control over the 99% of the population. Power equals control.