When they shall paint our sockets gray And light us like a stinking fuse, Remember that we once could say, Yesterday we had a world to lose.

We have all been expelled from the Garden, but the ones who suffer most in exile are those who are still permitted to dream of perfection.

A longing for the dance stirs in the buried life.

A poet needs to keep his wilderness alive inside him.

You must be careful not to deprive the poem of its wild origin.

...few young poets [are] testing their poems against the ear. They're writing for the page, and the page, let me tell you, is a cold bed.

Some poems present themselves as cliffs that need to be climbed. Others are so defensive that when you approach their enclosure you half expect to be met by a snarling dog at the gate. Still others want to smother you with their sticky charms.