Poetry is often generations in advance of the thought of its time.

The art of one period cannot be approached through the attitudes (emotional or intellectual) of another.

Up from the bronze, I saw Water without a flaw Rush to its rest in air Reach to its rest, and fall.

But childhood prolonged, cannot remain a fairyland. It becomes a hell.

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

The measured blood beats out the year's delay.

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.