I didn't sit down then and start writing poems, but it was in the back of my mind.

Reading poetry is an adventure in renewal, a creative act, a perpetual beginning, a rebirth of wonder.

Language is an impure medium. Speech is public property and words are the soiled products, not of nature, but of society, which circulates and uses them for a thousand different ends.

There has never been a great poet who wasn't also a great reader of poetry.

The way to become a poet is to read poetry and to imitate what you read and to read passionately and widely and in as involved a way as you can.

I put down these memorandums of my affections in honor of tenderness, in honor of all of those who have been conscripted into the brotherhood of loss.

The spiritual desire for poetry can be overwhelming, so much do I need it to experience and name my own perilous depths and vast spaces, my own well-being.

But, something has to be worked through formally as well as emotionally. Now, when those two things come together I've got something, I think, that I can be proud of.

A poem is a hand, a hook, a prayer. It is a soul in action.

I was surprised recently to find a book called "Poetry in Persons" that's coming out about visit to poets to a class that Pearl London gave.

But, the best times I have found, in my life, are late at night or early in the morning and I think it's because you're outside the social realm.

We have arguments [with my father] and we had a lot of arguments in the years when I was at Michigan.

Christ offers something for nothing: He even offers everything for nothing.

When you have four daughters, you learn to lose early and often.

It cannot be precisely known how any thing is good or bad, till it is precisely known what it is.

If my mum thinks I'm acting like a diva she'll soon tell me off... She'll cut me down to size!

Certainly the plagiarism, and dealing with the fallout of it, was the most difficult thing I've ever faced since I started writing.

Men may have wars, but women have their period. Men go off and kill each other, but women say nasty things, which is even better.

I don't think there's ever a time where I step back and say I wish I was something different. I'm doing what I love to do.

Real Americans don't back down.

I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background.