I am not concerned with truth, nor with conventional notions of what is beautiful.

Each moment is a place you've never been.

I tend to like poems that engage me - that is to say, which do not bore me.

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.

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

I don't really think it will make much difference to me when I'm dead whether I'm read or not . . . just as whether I'm dead or not won't mean much to me when I'm dead.

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.