All poetry is an ordered voice, one which tries to tell you about a vision in the un-visionary language of farm, city, and love.

Writing is rewriting what you have rewritten.

Verse is not written, it is bled; Out of the poet's abstract head. Words drip the poem on the page; Out of his grief, delight and rage.

Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power.

All families had their special Christmas food. Ours was called Dutch Bread, made from a dough halfway between bread and cake, stuffed with citron and every sort of nut from the farm - hazel, black walnut, hickory, butternut.

Has the painter not always gone to an art school, or at least to an established master, for instruction? And the composer, the sculptor, the architect? Then why not the writer? Good poets, like good hybrid corn, are both born and made.

Other families bought automobiles; we had a horse-headed hitching post in front of our house and drove horses.