A lot happens by accident in poetry.

[T]eaching has been for me an education (Lord knows what it has been for my students).

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

Language is remarkable, except under the extreme constraints of mathematics and logic, it never can talk only about what it's supposed to talk about but is always spreading around.

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

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

Once in awhile you have a thought, and you rhyme it.