Much of our lives involves the word “no.” In school we are mostly told, “Don't do it this way. Do it that way.” But art is the big yes. In art, you get a chance to make something where there was nothing.

I speak to you in one tongue/ but every moment that ever mattered to me/ occurred in another language.

Our job is to become more and more of what we are. The growth of a poet seems to be related to his or her becoming less and less embarrassed about more and more.

The war to preserve the privilege of mythmaking

Poetry is the least imposition on silence in a world of chatter.

Sometimes the best revision of a poem is a new poem.

Try to write poems at least one person in the room will hate.