Deftly they opened the brain of a child, and it was full of flying dreams.

I want to write poems that are natural, luminous, deep, spare. I dream of an art so transparent that you can look through and see the world.

Certainly the modern poets I cherish most are disturbing spirits; they do not come to coo.

Poetry is the enemy of the poem.

I dropped my hoe and ran into the house and started to write this poem, 'End of Summer.’ It began as a celebration of wild geese. Eventually the geese flew out of the poem, but I like to think they left behind the sound of their beating wings.

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

Rhythm to me is essentially what Hopkins called the taste of self. I taste myself as rhythm.