...in the face of all dangers, in what may seem a godless region, we move forward through the agencies of love and art.

Intimacy, says the phenomenologist Gaston Bachelard, is the highest value. I resist this statement at first. What about artistic achievement, or moral courage, or heroism, or altruistic acts, or work in the cause of social change? What about wealth or accomplishment? And yet something about it rings true, finally—that what we want is to be brought into relationship, to be inside, within. Perhaps it’s true that nothing matters more to us than that.

Desire can make anything into a god.

What is healing, but a shift in perspectives?

Into the paradise of euphony, the good poet must introduce hell. Broken paradises are the only kind worth reading.

Grief does not seem to me to be a choice. Whether or not you think grief has value, you will lose what matters to you. The world will break your heart. So I think we’d better look at what grief might offer us. It’s like what Rilke says about self-doubt: it is not going to go away, and therefore you need to think about how it might become your ally.

Poetry is an investigation, not an expression, of what you know.