Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light.

I worked privately, and sometimes I feel that might be better for poets than the kind of social workshop gathering. My school was the great poets: I read, and I read, and I read.

I have a notebook with me all the time, and I begin scribbling a few words. When things are going well, the walk does not get anywhere; I finally just stop and write.

People want poetry. They need poetry. They get it. They don't want fancy work.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it is over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument. I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Poetry is a life-cherishing force.

What misery to be afraid of death. What wretchedness, to believe only in what can be proven.