The number of people writing poems is vast, and their reasons for doing so are many, that much can be surmised from the stacks of submissions.

I certainly can't speak for all cultures or all societies, but it's clear that in America, poetry serves a very marginal purpose. It's not part of the cultural mainstream.

I haven’t met God and I haven’t been to heaven, so I’m skeptical.

There's a certain point, when you're writing autobiographical stuff, where you don't want to misrepresent yourself. It would be dishonest.

In a field I am the absence of field. This is always the case. Wherever I am I am what is missing.

I believe that all poetry is formal in that it exists within limits, limits that are either inherited by tradition or limits that language itself imposes.

Sometimes he did not know if he slept or just thought about sleep.