There are a lot of men who are healthier at age fifty then they have ever been before, because a lot of their fear is gone.

I felt a longing to compose a radical or root poem that would speak to what has its back turned to me.

One man wrote me, saying, 'You know who you are? You're nothing but a Captain Bly pissing up a drainpipe!'

The dead made this world. We didn't make it. They made the poetry and the songs and the customs.

All of Japan once a year will get up on their rooftops, because that's the night that the shepherd boy from one side of the Milky Way gets to meet the weaver girl on the other side of the Milky Way. They all get up on their roofs and watch that night. So they long for 365 days and then on the 365th night, they see the result of that longing.

Some people can't go into church any longer to feel this longing, but they still have the longing, so what do they do? Well, one thing you can do is what people do in prison; they turn to poetry.

You say to yourself, Well, this poem isn't going to be any good, but I'll write it anyway.