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.

Now it’s high watermark and floodtide in the heart and time to go. The sea-nymphs in the spray will be the chorus now. What’s left to say? Suspect too much sweet-talk but never close your mind. It was a fortunate wind that blew me here. I leave half-ready to believe that a crippled trust might walk and the half-true rhyme is love.

Memory has always been fundamental for me. In fact, remembering what I had forgotten is the way most of the poems get started.

Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for.

Poetry is language in orbit.

I felt implicated in American affairs.Outraged at the blatant lies about Iraqs involvement in al Qaeda, at the regimes arrogance and stupidity, Guantnamo Bay and all the rest of it. But the poems at the start of District and Circle Anahorish 1944, The Aerodromearent particularly aimed as criticism. On the contrary, there's a recognition of the big contribution to world order made in Europe during World War II.

If you have the words, there's always a chance that you'll find the way.