On poetry: Everyone wants to know what it means. But nobody is asking, How does it feel?

And to tell the truth I don't want to let go of the wrists of idleness, I don't want to sell my life for money, I don't even want to come in out of the rain.

I wanted to hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know, whoever I was, I was alive for a little while.

I want to be braver and more honest about my life. When you're sexually abused, there's a lot of damage.

Attention is the beginning of devotion.

Mornings at Blackwater" For years, every morning, I drank from Blackwater Pond. It was flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt, the feet of ducks. And always it assuaged me from the dry bowl of the very far past. What I want to say is that the past is the past, and the present is what your life is, and you are capable of choosing what that will be, darling citizen. So come to the pond, or the river of your imagination, or the harbor of your longing, and put your lips to the world. And live your life.

On poetry: Everyone wants to know what it means. But nobody is asking, How does it feel?