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.

Breathe-in experience, breathe-out poetry.

Beware of those who talk about sacrifice.

The universe of poetry is the universe of emotional truth. Our material is in the way we feel and the way we remember.

Exchange is creation.

Poetry is, above all, an approach to the truth of feeling. A fine poem will seize your imagination intellectually - that is, when you reach it, you will reach it intellectually too - but the way is through emotion, through what we call feeling.

One writes in order to feel.