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.

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

We have a lot of long narrative poems written in the 20th century, but they're not very well known, and they're not read by very many people.

I don't think the creative writing industry has helped American poetry.

The young people have MTV and rock and roll. Why would they go to read poetry? Poetry belongs to the Stone Age. It awakens in us perceptions that go back to those times.

One of the most powerful devices is to distort time, to go from human time to atomic time, geologic time. Sometimes you can actually accomplish that, with one unexpected word choice.

Poetry, almost by definition, calls attention to its language and form.