Prizes aren't essential. What is essential is poetry itself, it's what is said, it is clarity, it's loyalty, those are the essential values, the literary values.

I think that if poetry is not a personal act, it's a pamphlet.

Men use women sexually. They use them, mistreat them, even from the point of view of vocabulary, the use of words. It baffles me.

I don't offend anyone, I don't use anyone, I don't exploit anyone.

Prizes aren't essential. What is essential is poetry itself, it's what is said, it is clarity, it's loyalty, those are the essential values, the literary values.

I think the obligation of a poet is not to be in an ivory tower; it is not to be isolated but to be among people.

As a journalist, I never isolated myself. I was a journalist at a daily newspaper and every day I went out on the street. Every day I had contact with people. I interviewed the most important writers of the twentieth century, and into the twenty-first century, from Simone de Beauvoir, Marguerite Duras, and Marguerite Yourcenar to Christa Wolf.