The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.

So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights we'll be called a democracy.

It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.

The urge to write poetry is like having an itch. When the itch becomes annoying enough you scratch it.

It all has to do with art - writing painting things I've done for a long time but just never had enough time to pursue. I have poetry - things that are designed for songs but they're always poems first.

I think we will always have the impulse towards visual poetry with us and I wouldn't agree with Bly that it's a bad thing. It depends on the ability of the individual poet to do it well and to make a shape which is interesting enough to hold your attention.

Otherwise I don't read much adult poetry at all because I'm not smart enough and mostly I don't get it.

I don't think American poetry has gotten any better in the past 35 years. Oddly enough creative writing programs seem to have been good for fiction and I would not have predicted that.

I came into music because I thought the presentation of poetry wasn't vibrant enough. So I merged improvised poetry with basic rock chords.

We read Robert Browning's poetry. Here we needed no guidance from the professor: the poems themselves were enough.