Rarest of the real poets are born poets. They are the oddballs, not the professors.
My earliest poems sing of the absolute necessity of allowing love to invade and pervade one's life. That can make the miracle happen in reality. Try it.
My films are an extension of my poetry, using the white screen like the white page to be filled with images.
For me a poem has to sing out of itself and the lilt of it carries the magic.
Poetry for me is as much a spiritual practice as sexual ecstasy is.
Some artists shrink from self-awareness, fearing that it will destroy their unique gifts and even their desire to create. The truth of the matter is quite opposite.
The American public does not know poets exist.
The most astonishing joy is to receive from the muses the gift of a whole lyric.
The only limits are, as always, those of vision.
The quietest poetry can be an explosion of joy.
If you don't fill your days with love, you are wasting your life.
My major aim in writing is to set out flags and issue wake-up calls.
For me, prose walks, poetry dances.
Today the U.S. is farther from being nourished by poetry than it was a hundred years ago, when books of poems were best-sellers.
In the world of poetry there are would-be poets, workshop poets, promising poets, lovesick poets, university poets, and a few real poets.