Pain is filtered in a poem so that it becomes finally, in the end, pleasure.

I have been eating poetry.

But I tend to think of the expressive part of me as rather tedious - never curious or responsive, but blind and self-serving.

I would say that American poetry has always been a poetry of personal testimony.

Nothing is the destiny of everyone, it is our commonness made dumb.

The burial of feelings has begun.

And yet, in a culture like ours, which is given to material comforts, and addicted to forms of entertainment that offer immediate gratification, it is surprising that so much poetry is written.