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

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

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.

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.

Usually a life turned into a poem is misrepresented.

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

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.