We recognise in the finished art which is the result of these conditions the best words in the best order - poetry and to put this essential poetry into different classes is impossible.

On a summer night it can be lovely to sit around outside with friends after dinner and yes read poetry to each other. Keats and Yeats will never let you down but it's differently exciting to read the work of poets who are still walking around out there.

Written poetry is different. Best thing is to see it in performance first then read it. Performance is more provocative.

I believe that the short story is as different a form from the novel as poetry is and the best stories seem to me to be perhaps closer in spirit to poetry than to novels.

Poetry especially traditional Iranian poetry is very good at looking at things from a number of different angles simultaneously.

A group of us started a community center in Santa Monica. We've tried different programs and three have worked really well. A poetry group. Once a week we visit Venice High and talk to girls at risk.

Poetry always runs away from you - it's very difficult to grasp it and every time you read it depending on your conditions you will have a different grasp of it. Whereas with a novel once you have read it you have grasped it.

I love to compare different time frames. Poetry can evoke the time of the subject. By a very careful choice of words you can evoke an era completely throw the poem into a different time scale.

Translation is an interestingly different way to be involved both with poetry and with the language that I've found myself living in much of the time. I think the two feed each other.

When I was in college I used to write little ditties and short stories and poetry for my friends. Writing a book is another thing. It is so much different from my traditional day of dirty fingernails and greasy hair and hot pans.