We’re only here for a short while. And I think it’s such a lucky accident, having been born, that we’re almost obliged to pay attention.

A great many people seem to think writing poetry is worthwhile, even though it pays next to nothing and is not as widely read as it should be.

Poems not only demand patience, they demand a kind of surrender. You must give yourself up to them. This is the real food for a poet: other poems, not meat loaf.

A life is not sufficiently elevated for poetry, unless, of course, the life has been made into an art.

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

And what does it matter when light enters the room where a child sleeps and the waking mother, opening her eyes, wishes more than anything to be unwakened by what she cannot name?

Poetry is, first and last, language - the rest is filler.