I think that poetry is important when you are shipwrecked, when the ordinary structures that hold you up are gone.

Before I was a parent I was struck by Rilke, who, as you know, didn't go to his daughter's wedding because he was writing a poem that day. That was the ideal for artistic behavior in 1950. That's the way I wanted to live.

I am proud only of those days that pass in undivided tenderness.

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

I think that poetry is important when you are shipwrecked, when the ordinary structures that hold you up are gone.

By the time a man is 35 he knows that the images of the right man, the tough man, the true man which he received in high school do not work in life.

The best presenters have conversations with their audiences.