The medium of poetry is not words, the medium of poetry is not lines-it is the motion of air inside the human body, coming out through the chest and the voice box and through the mouth to shape sounds that have meaning. It's bodily.

There is much appeal for me in Eastern religion, the little I know of it. And something thorny in me finds American adaptations of Buddhism terribly self-indulgent, silly, gooey in the way the English call "wet."

The medium of poetry is a human body: the column of air inside the chest, shaped into signifying sounds in the larynx and the mouth. In this sense, poetry is just as physical or bodily an art as dancing.

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

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

If what you want to do is make good art, decide whats good and try to imitate it.

Art will not solve your problems. It will not enable you to live merrily.