It's very hard to write humor.

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

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.

Poetry is something that happens in universities, in creative writing programs or in English departments.

These wrinkles are nothing These gray hairs are nothing, This stomach which sags with old food, these bruised and swollen ankles, my darkening brain, they are nothing. I am the same boy my mother used to kiss.

We are reading the story of our lives As though we were in it As though we had written it.

The reality of a poem is a very ghostly one. It suggests, it suggests, it suggests again.