I encourage students to pursue an idea far enough so they can see what the cliches and stereotypes are. Only then do they begin to hit pay dirt.

A poem in form still has to have voice, gesture, a sense of discovery, a metaphoric connection, as any poetry does.

I tell students they will know they are getting somewhere when a scene is so painful they can just barely bring themselves to write about it. A writer has to draw blood.

If a poem is not memorable, there's probably something wrong. One of the problems of free verse is that much of the free verse poetry is not memorable.

Part of what we love about poetry is the fact that it seems ancient, that it has an authority of ancient language and ancient form, and that it's timeless, that it reaches back.

The great watershed of modern poetry is French, more than English.

Pound's translation of Chinese poetry was maybe the most important thing I read. Eliot a little bit later.