Well I had this little notion - I started writing when I was eleven writing poetry. I was passionately addicted to it it was my great refuge through adolescence.

Well the great thing for me about poetry is that in good poems the dislocation of words that is to say the distance between what they say they're saying and what they are actually saying is at its greatest.

I published privately a collection of my serious poetry I had written over the years. I only published 50 copies which I gave to friends in a special deluxe edition. It was ridiculously expensive but I'm glad that I did it.

A great many people seem to think writing poetry is worthwhile even though it pays next to nothing and is not as widely read as it should be.

A life is not sufficiently elevated for poetry unless of course the life has been made into an art.

And at least in poetry you should feel free to lie. That is not to lie but to imagine what you want to follow the direction of the poem.

And yet in a culture like ours which is given to material comforts and addicted to forms of entertainment that offer immediate gratification it is surprising that so much poetry is written.

I believe that all poetry is formal in that it exists within limits limits that are either inherited by tradition or limits that language itself imposes.

I certainly can't speak for all cultures or all societies but it's clear that in America poetry serves a very marginal purpose. It's not part of the cultural mainstream.

I think the best American poetry is the poetry that utilizes the resources of poetry rather than exploits the defects or triumphs of the poet's personality.