A poem is a neutrino - mainly nothing - it has no mass and can pass through the earth undetected.

[On filling out a grant application:] I seek an extended period of time, free from all distractions, so that I might be free to be distracted.

In life, the number of beginnings is exactly equal to the number of endings ... In poetry, the number of beginnings so far exceeds the number of endings that we cannot even conceive of it.

The origins of poetry are clearly rooted in obscurity, in secretiveness, in incantation, in spells that must at once invoke and protect, tell the secret and keep it.

Although all poets aspire to be birds, no bird aspires to be a poet.

The words secret and sacred are siblings.

Metaphor is not, and never has been, a mere literary term. It is an event.