I can't remember the past, or I can't see very clearly, or I've gotten older and the person I was isn't there anymore, and the place I grew up isn't where I live now.

I think those of us who use language are always trying for this, trying to keep everything from floating away by trying to write about it despite failure.

I want literature to open all the doors that I can't open by myself, and to allow me to see things that I wouldn't otherwise see.

Language is as fragile as the little alpine plant.

Often poets fall into groups that exclude others, and don't pay attention to those who write in different ways. It seems so limited to me.

I've always been interested in the fragility of things, and with special urgency now because of climate change, but also because of the accidents of reading.

Shakespeare, of course, makes us ever aware of transience, not only in the sonnets, but also powerfully in his plays - spectacles for a brief period of time and then gone, as when Prospero describes the pageant fading, leaving "not a rack behind."