But I can only write what the muse allows me to write. I cannot choose I can only do what I am given and I feel pleased when I feel close to concrete poetry - still.

One can't write for all readers. A poet cannot write for people who don't like poetry.

People wish to be poets more than they wish to write poetry and that's a mistake. One should wish to celebrate more than one wishes to be celebrated.

There are men who can write poetry and there are men who can read balance sheets. The men who can read balance sheets cannot write.

My mother carried on and supported us her ambition had been to write poetry and songs.

I want to write a book of poetry as well as children's stories.

I do not see how a man can work on the frontiers of physics and write poetry at the same time. They are in opposition.

I was influenced by surrealist poetry and painting as were thousands of other people and it seems to me to have become a part of the way I write but it's not.

I wonder if I ever thought of an ideal reader... I guess when I was in my 20s and in New York and maybe even in my early 30s I would write for my wife Janice... mainly for my poet friends and my wife who was very smart about poetry.

I used to write sonnets and various things and moved from there into writing prose which incidentally is a lot more interesting than poetry including the rhythms of prose.