...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.

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

I refuse to turn to theology to justify the life or redeem it. There is a question always of the connection to the eternal. I say to myself above all, keep alive your conviction that there are sacred elements in the life in the practice of the life that must be respected. But the conviction in the existence of the sacred does not necessarily imply that you need to believe in a creator, because we are the ones that made the sacred.

End with an image and don't explain.

The poem comes in the form of a blessing, like rapture breaking on the mind.

The first task of the poet is to create the person who will write the poems.