I could define poetry this way: it is that which is lost out of both prose and verse in translation.

The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom... in a clarification of life - not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces Between stars—on stars where no human race is. I have it in me so much nearer home To scare myself with my own desert places.

The snake stood up for evil in the Garden.

Poetry is a reaching out forward expression, an effort to find fulfillment

Unless I'm wrong I but obey The urge of a song: I'm-bound-away! And I may return If dissatisfied With what I learn From having died.

I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.