The simple act of paying positive attention to people has a great deal to do with productivity.

There's a weird cloud around you when you're recognizable. It was a brief window for me. I think you have to have a pathological need for attention of any type negative or positive to thrive in that kind of situation. And I only want compliments.

Every person has only so much attention to give and politics and government takes up only a fraction of what it did 25 years ago.

Whether one believes or not religion is as real a force in the life of the world as economics or politics and it demands fair-minded attention. Even if you think the entire religious enterprise is at best misguided and at worst counterproductive it remains vital inspiring great good and sometimes great evil.

As women have played an increasingly important role in politics there is no question that they've brought a different perspective focusing attention on a broader set of issues and building alliances with other women.

I think we will always have the impulse towards visual poetry with us and I wouldn't agree with Bly that it's a bad thing. It depends on the ability of the individual poet to do it well and to make a shape which is interesting enough to hold your attention.

Probably all the attention to poetry results in some value though the attention is more often directed to lesser than to greater values.

I see people who talk about America and then undermine it by not paying attention to its soul to its poetry. I see polarization reductionism and superficiality.

Poetry almost by definition calls attention to its language and form.

Poetry has the virtue of being able to say twice as much as prose in half the time and the drawback if you do not give it your full attention of seeming to say half as much in twice the time.