When you get an idea, go and write. Don't waste it in conversation.

I love painting and music, of course. I don't know nearly as much about them as I know about poetry. I've certainly been influenced by fiction. I was overwhelmed by War and Peace when I read it, and I didn't read it until I was in my late 20s.

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

It's enormously cheering to get a good review by someone who seems to understand your work.

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.

You can't be too influenced by a great poet. You simply have to live through it.

Picasso said once when being interviewed that one should not be one's own connoisseur.