Politics is there the way men and women are there, the way the Atlantic Ocean is there. Sometimes I've written about politics specifically, I mean about politics as it's understood on television and in newspapers.

Summer in the trees! “It is time to strangle several bad poets.

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

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.

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

I wonder if I ever thought of an ideal reader... I guess when I was in my 20s and in New York and maybe even in my early 30s, I would write for my wife Janice... mainly for my poet friends and my wife, who was very smart about poetry.

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