If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.

I think it was T.S. Eliot who talked about good poetry being felt before it's understood. I believe that. There are some bands where I love their lyrics but I don't have a clue what they're on about.

I have always made my own rules in poetry as in life - though I have tried of late to cooperate more with my family. I do however believe that without order or pattern poetry is useless.

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.

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 don't think rap really fits in to 'American Idol' in the sense that I believe rap is an art form in itself more akin to poetry more akin to drama if you will.

I don't think you get to good writing unless you expose yourself and your feelings. Deep songs don't come from the surface they come from the deep down. The poetry and the songs that you are suppose to write I believe are in your heart.

Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal which the reader recognizes as his own.

And I strongly believe people should rescue dogs or at the very least listen to Bob Barker and have your pet spayed or neutered.

I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat I am sure could walk on a cloud without coming through.