For the past thirty years or so, much American poetry has been marked by an earnestness that rejects the comic. This has nothing to do with seriousness. The comic can be very serious. The trouble with the earnest is that it seeks to be commended. It seeks to be praised for its intention more than for what it is saying.

I write poems to find out why I write them

There's a Welsh poet, R.S. Thomas. He was a very crotchety, strange man, but his poems are wonderful. He was nominated for the Nobel in the 1990s but never won.

Love doesn't need a reason. Hate needs a reason.

A poem is a window that hangs between two or more human beings who otherwise live in darkened rooms.

It was as if pain were a room he had entered and the door had been locked behind him.

I'm reading "The Sunset of a Splendid Century" by W.H. Lewis. He was C.S. Lewis's brother. He wrote two books about the French court of Louis XIV that are incredibly detailed. They are books that on every page you say, "Wow, think of that."