“In the poetry of attention, poems are not problems.”
“You can woo a girl with a poem, but you can't hold onto her with a poem. Not even with a poetry movement.”
“A poem is a revelation, and it is by the brink of running water that poetry is revealed to the mind.”
“Truly fine poetry must be read aloud. A good poem does not allow itself to be read in a low voice or silently. If we can read it silently, it is not a valid poem: a poem demands pronunciation. Poetry always remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art. It remembers that it was first song.”
“If I were to choose between the power of writing a poem and the ecstasy of a poem unwritten, I would choose the ecstasy. It is better poetry.”
“Modern poetry, for me, began not in English at all but in Spanish, in the poems of Lorca.”