Before people complain of the obscurity of modern poetry, they should first examine their consciences and ask themselves with how many people and on how many occasions they have genuinely and profoundly shared some experience with another...

What we have not named as a symbol escapes our notice.

Sob, heavy world Sob as you spin, Mantled in mist Remote from the happy.

The glacier knocks in the cupboard, The desert sighs in the bed, And the crack in the teacup opens A lane to the land of the dead.

A writer is a maker, not a man of action: his private life is of no concern to anybody but himself, his family and his friends.

I used to try and concentrate the poem so much that there wasn't a word that wasn't essential. This leads to becoming boring and constipated.

A writer, or at least a poet, is always being asked by people who should know better: “Whom do you write for?” The question is, of course, a silly one, but I can give it a silly answer. Occasionally I come across a book which I feel has been written especially for me and for me only. Like a jealous lover I don’t want anybody else to hear of it. To have a million such readers, unaware of each other’s existence, to be read with passion and never talked about, is the daydream, surely, of every author.