The secrets of success are a good wife and a steady job. My wife told me.

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.

It may be said that poems are in one way like icebergs: only about a third of their bulk appears above the surface of the page.

Occasionally a student writer comes up with something really beautiful and moving, and you won't know for years if it was an accident or the first burst of something wonderful.

The spirit world doesn't admit to communicating with me, so it's fairly even.

When I was starting to write, the great influence was T.S. Eliot and after that William Butler Yeats.

I am not at all clear what free verse is anymore. That's one of the things you learn not to know.