When I was a kid, I suppose I got more praise for being able to draw things and paint things than I did for my little amateur poems I was writing. But the thing that I'm trying to do with my painting is that I'm trying to keep it in the realm of pleasure. I don't show my work, I don't try to sell it.

All night, this soft rain from The distant past. No wonder I sometimes Waken as a child.

Turtle has just one plan at a time, and every cell buys into it.

For a while the creative writing community sort of sprung out of places like Iowa and Syracuse. The graduates sort of went out, and they would found creative writing departments in the little colleges where they went, and then some of those would found other ones. I mean every college has got a creative writing department, so where are the jobs coming from? There are not any jobs out there.

Sometimes you sense how faithfully your life is delivered, even though you can't read the address.

There's nothing wrong with delighting in what you do. In fact, most of the fun you'll have as a poet will come about during the process of writing.

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.