Most poetry is very formal, but when a modern poet is formal he gets more attention for it than old poets did.

Pity the planet, all joy gone from this sweet volcanic cone; peace to our children when they fall in small war on the heel of small war--until the end of time to police the earth, a ghost orbiting forever lost in our monotonous sublime

Poetry is not the record of an event: it is an event.

September twenty-second, Sir, the bough cracks with unpicked apples, and at dawn the small-mouth bass breaks water, gorged with spawn.

It's the light of the oncoming train.

Middle Age At forty-five, What next, what next? At every corner, I meet my Father, My age, still alive.

I'm sure that writing isn't a craft, that is, something for which you learn the skills and go on turning out. It must come from some deep impulse, deep inspiration. That can't be taught, it can't be what you use in teaching.