A very intimate sense of the expressiveness of outward things which ponders listens penetrates where the earlier less developed consciousness passed lightly by is an important element in the general temper of our modern poetry.

Teaching writing over the years intrudes on your own writing in important ways taking away some of the excitement of poetry.

Pound's translation of Chinese poetry was maybe the most important thing I read. Eliot a little bit later.

Solitude is very important in my work as a mode of inspiration but isolation is not good in this respect. I am not writing poetry about isolation.

Everyone needs solitude especially a person who is used to thinking about what she experiences. Solitude is very important in my work as a mode of inspiration but isolation is not good in this respect. I am not writing poetry about isolation.

While also importantly not wanting to dumb it down or pretend the days of 'difficult' poetry are over because we live in a pluralist culture and there's room for 'difficult' poetry alongside rap and everything else. And poetry won't be for everyone but everyone should have the choice.

Is there any purpose to translating poetry? A poem does not contain information of importance like a signpost or a warning notice.

I came here as a practical man to talk not simply on the question of peace and war but to treat another question which is of hardly less importance - the enormous and burdensome standing armaments which it is the practice of modern Governments to sustain in time of peace.

In a case like Iraq the UN has again shown what important role it plays as the guarantor for protecting international peace and stability in the global political structure.

Churchill knew the importance of peace and he also knew the price of it. Churchill finally got his voice of course. He stressed strategy but it was his voice that armed England at last with the old-fashioned moral concepts of honor and duty justice and mercy.