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

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.

O remember In your narrowing dark hours That more things move Than blood in the heart.

The poem is always the last resort. In it the poet makes a world in little, and finds peace, even though, under complete focused emotion, the evocation be far more bitter than reality, or far more lovely.

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

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

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