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.

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.

...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.

Not that you need to be a saint to have visions worth talking about. The most effective prescription, I suspect, is to be a disciplined sinner. Perfection, as Valery noted, is work.

Be what you are. Give What is yours to give. Have Style. Dare.

The poem in the head is always perfect. Resistance begins when you try to convert it into language.

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.