A writer is not different from a reader, in that the common ragbag of orthodoxies and assumptions is what a poet has to work with as well.

The gift of writing is to be self-forgetful...

No bit of the natural world is more valuable or more vulnerable than the tree bit. Nothing is more like ourselves, standing upright, caught between heaven and earth, frail at the extremities, yet strong at the central trunk, and nothing is closer to us at the beginning and at the end, providing the timber boards that frame both the cradle and the coffin.

Im a firm believer in learning by heart.

Once I was on the job, once I had got started, I felt safe enough, but the anticipation made me tense.

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

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