Shakespeare tells the same stories over and over in so many guises that it takes a long time before you notice.

I've never read a political poem that's accomplished anything. Poetry makes things happen, but rarely what the poet wants.

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.

I sometimes talk about the making of a poem within the poem.

A teacher is a person who never says anything once.

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.

Writing is like the relationship with your bowels. First you can, then you can't. Finally, you must. Only then should you reach for the paper.