The fact, and the intuition or logic about the fact, are severe coordinates in fiction. In the short story they must cross with hair-line precision.

I'll lie here and learn How, over their ground, Trees make a long shadow And a light sound.

But it's silly to suggest the writing of poetry is something ethereal, a sort of soul-crashing, devastating emotional experience that wrings you. I have no fancy ideas about poetry. ... It doesn't come to you on the wings of a dove. It's something you have to work hard at.

Because language is the carrier of ideas, it is easy to believe that it should be very little else than such a carrier.

It is not possible, for a poet, writing in any language, to protect himself from the tragic elements in human life.... [ellipsis in source] Illness, old age, and death--subjects as ancient as humanity--these are the subjects that the poet must speak of very nearly from the first moment that he begins to speak.

All art, in spite of the struggles of some critics to prove otherwise, is based on emotion and projects emotion.

I hope that one or two immortal lyrics will come out of all this tumbling around.