High and low culture come together in all Post Modern art and American poetry is not excluded from this.

I like the way words go together and I like the gamesmanship of writing poetry. It is such a challenge.

When you translate poetry in particular you're obliged to look at how the writer with whom you're working puts together words sentences phrases the triple tension between the line of verse the syntax and the sentence.

I think that's what poetry does. It allows people to come together and identify with a common thing that is outside of themselves but which they identify with from the interior.

Those who say we should dismantle the role of Poet Laureate altogether the trick they miss is that being called this thing with the weight of tradition behind it and with the association of the Royal family does allow you to have conversations and to open doors and wallets for the good of poetry in a way that nothing else would allow.

Poetry and music are very good friends. Like mommies and daddies and strawberries and cream - they go together.

I always wrote poetry and stuff like that so putting songs together wasn't that spectacular.

Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas nerved and blooded with emotions all held together by the delicate tough skin of words.

A poem is true if it hangs together. Information points to something else. A poem points to nothing but itself.

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