We have to raise the consciousness; the only way poets can change the world is to raise the consciousness of the general populace.

I certainly was surprised to be named Poet Laureate of this far-out city on the left side of the world, and I gratefully accept, for as I told the Mayor, "How could I refuse?" I'd rather be Poet Laureate of San Francisco than anywhere because this city has always been a poetic center, a frontier for free poetic life, with perhaps more poets and more poetry readers than any city in the world.

I once started out to walk around the world but ended up in Brooklyn, that Bridge was too much for me.

I am waiting for the war to be fought which will make the world safe for anarchy

Don't patronize the chain bookstores. Every time I see some author scheduled to read and sign his books at a chain bookstore, I feel like telling him he's stabbing the independent bookstores in the back.

You can publish a poem you think is a very important poem, and you don't hear a word from anyone. [...] You can publish a book of poetry by dropping it off a cliff and waiting to hear an echo. Quite often, you'll never hear a thing. So doing that, using older work, puts it in a context, and that sort of forces the reader to realize what its importance is-if it has any. Everything needs a context. You're not going to recognize a poet unless you have a context.

The state of the world calls out for poetry to save it.