I've always associated the moment of writing with a moment of lift, of joy, of unexpected reward.

In off the moors, down through the mist beams, god-cursed Grendel came greedily loping.

When I first encountered the name of the city of Stockholm, I little thought that I would ever visit it, never mind end up being welcomed to it as a guest of the Swedish Academy and the Nobel Foundation.

I can't think of a case where poems changed the world, but what they do is they change people's understanding of what's going on in the world.

I rhyme… to see myself, to set the darkness echoing.

Harvard meant a lot in my writing life from the beginning, even though I didnt actually do much composition on the spot.

My teaching was animated by what I was reading and being excited by as a poet.