I've written some poems that are in the middle ground - who are in between very challenging and abundantly clear, but there's a tremendous investment in the challenging poem, and it's been going on so long that the whole infrastructure supporting it, a lot of critics and theorists and so on are deeply invested in maintaining that status.

The poem is the device through which the ordinary world is seen in a new way - engaging, compelling, even beautiful.

Valentine's Day is the poet's holiday.

One movement that I find interesting - this is not a movement in poetry necessarily, but there's a movement on a lot of campuses now called eco - criticism. It's a body of theory based on how nature is treated in literary works. That sort of interests me.

I like the idea of there being times when even words cost so much you used them sparingly. I have known a lot of old men and women who talked as if they were paying Western Union by the word.

This evening, I sat by an open window and read till the light was gone and the book was no more than a part of the darkness.

a happy birthday this evening, I sat by an open window and read till the light was gone and the book was no more than a part of the darkness. I could easily have switched on a lamp, but I wanted to ride the day down into night, to sit alone, and smooth the unreadable page with the pale gray ghost of my hand