I never thought of myself as a New York poet or as an American poet.

I've had trouble with criticism, I guess. It's hard to know what role criticism plays in either encouraging poets or in getting other people to read them.

Certainly, it seems true enough that there's a good deal of irony in the world... I mean, if you live in a world full of politicians and advertising, there's obviously a lot of deception.

This rose became a bandanna, which became a house, which became infused with all passion, which became a hideaway, which became yes I would like to have dinner, which became hands, which became lands, shores, beaches, natives on the stones, staring and wild beasts in the trees, chasing the hats of lost hunters, and all this deserves a tone.

You aren't just the age you are. You are all the ages you ever have been!

Poetry, which is written while no one is looking, is meant to be looked at for all time.

As for political poetry, as it's usually defined, it seems there's very little good political poetry.