The 'idea' for the poem, which may come as an image thrown against memory, as a sound of words that sets off a traveling of sound and meaning, as a curve of emotion (a form) plotted by certain crises of events or image or sound, or as a title which evokes a sense of inner relations; this is the first 'surfacing' of the poem. Then a period of stillness may follow.

If there were no poetry on any day in the world, poetry would be invented that day. For there would be an intolerable hunger.

The fear of poetry is an indication that we are cut off from our own reality.

A work of art is one through which the consciousness of the artist is able to give its emotions to anyone who is prepared to receive them.

In time of crisis, we summon up our strength. Then, if we are lucky, we are able to call every resource, every forgotten image that can leap to our quickening, every memory that can make us know our power. And this luck is more than it seems to be: it depends on the long preparation of the self to be used.

Dreams are the sources of action, the meeting and the end, a resting place among the flight of things.

Nourish beginnings, let us nourish beginnings. Not all things are blest, but the seeds of all things are blest. The blessing is in the seed.