The completely solitary self: that's where poetry comes from, and it gets isolated by crisis, and those crises are often very intimate also.

The gift of writing is to be self-forgetful... to get a surge of inner life or inner supply or unexpected sense of empowerment, to be afloat, to be out of yourself.

Im a firm believer in learning by heart.

Part of my gradual education of myself has been to think that there is a deep relationship between the nature of the creature and the worth of the art.

I shall gain glory or die.

Once off the bush The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour. I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot. Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not. -Blackberry picking

Publication is rather like pushing the boat out; then the boat/book turns into a melting ice floe and you have to conjure a second boat which again turns into a melting floe under your feet. All the stepping stones that you conjure disappear under the water behind you.