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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When you finish a poem, it clicks shut like the top of a jewel box, but prose is endless. I haven't experienced an awful lot of clicking shut!

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