Once every five hundred years or so a summary statement about poetry comes along that we can't imagine ourselves living without.

Journalism wishes to tell what it is that has happened everywhere as though the same things had happened for every man. Poetry wishes to say what it is like for any man to be himself in the presence of a particular occurrence as though only he were alone there.

I'm not really quiet or shy. Ask any of my friends! But I always ground my poetry in life itself. Poetry is an art of language though so I am always aware of every word's meaning or multiple meanings.

I began the way nearly everybody I ever heard of - I began writing poetry. And I find that to be quite usual with writers their trying their hand at poetry.

I think I'm a very good reader of poetry but obviously like everybody I have a set of criteria for reading poems and I'm not shy about presenting them so if people ask for my critical response to a poem I tell them what works and why and what doesn't work and why.

Every so often I find some poems that are too good for the readers of The Atlantic because they are a little too involved with the nature of poetry as such.

Poetry should be able to reach everybody and it should be able to appeal to all levels of understanding.

You can find poetry in your everyday life your memory in what people say on the bus in the news or just what's in your heart.

There is an urgent need for Americans to look deeply into themselves and their actions and musical poetry is perhaps the most effective mirror available. Every newspaper headline is a potential song.

Poetry always runs away from you - it's very difficult to grasp it and every time you read it depending on your conditions you will have a different grasp of it. Whereas with a novel once you have read it you have grasped it.