I think that in the process of writing, all kinds of unexpected things happen that shift the poet away from his plan and that these accidents are really what we mean when we talk about poetry.

Where then shall hope and fear their objects find?

Once you've lived in France, you don't want to live anywhere else, including France.

Poetry comes to me out of thin air or out of my unconscious mind. It's sort of the way dreams come to us and the way that we get knowledge from them, through television, old movies, which I watch a lot of. Lines of dialogue suddenly seem to be part of a poem.

I'm heading for a clean-named place like Wisconsin, and mad as a jack-o'-lantern, will get there without help and nosy proclivities.

Somewhere someone is traveling furiously toward you, At incredible speed, traveling day and night.

I write with experiences in mind, but I don't write about them, I write out of them.