Today, from the bridge, the East River is sparkling. The money is swirling around the tall buildings like tides or like tithes, And I wonder, does anyone swim in this river, I wonder, does anyone pray?

The ghosts of Rilke and Wordsworth--along with the 300+ MFA programs, which now seem to employ all Living Poets--have misled the American public egregiously into thinking that poets are morally pure and/or useless.

When I moved to New York, the reputation just followed me, and I am regularly invited to play in home games, by writers in particular, though finance folk also invite me on occasion.

It is bizarre that some people can't understand how a serious poet could work at a finance firm. Goethe was a bureaucrat. Eliot worked as a banker.

I think it is extremely interesting to think that, in some cases, vice might be, finally, more redemptive than virtue.

Poetry is God's work.

I do think most poets are in denial about what the real taboos in writing are--the real boundaries.