If a poem is written well, it was written with the poet's voice and for a voice. Reading a poem silently instead of saying a poem is like the difference between staring at sheet music and actually humming or playing the music on an instrument.

To talk about the reality of life here and the work that you do here at the university.

Poetry is the most bodily of the arts.

Poetry’s medium is the individual chest and throat and mouth of whoever undertakes to say the poem.

Whatever makes a child want to glue macaroni on a paper plate and paint the assemblage and see it on the refrigerator - that has always been strong in me.

In jazz, as in poetry, there is always that play between what’s regular and what’s wild. That has always appealed to me.

My devils and angels, fears and hopes, insights and stupidities, loves and loathings, are what they are. I don't edit them out so much as try to make them interesting - whether I am talking to you, or writing a poem, or joking with my kids, or speaking on television.