“Everywhere the poems open.”

“Failures of nerve and energy are not permitted. That's what it means to be an object.”

“The language of the poem is the language of particulars.”

“Reading is a discount ticket to everywhere. ”

“Percy wakes me (fourteen)Percy wakes me and I am not ready.He has slept all night under the covers.Now he’s eager for action: a walk, then breakfast.So I hasten up. He is sitting on the kitchen counter Where he is not supposed to be. How wonderful you are, I say. How clever, if you Needed me, To wake me. He thought he would a lecture and deeply His eyes begin to shine.He tumbles onto the couch for more compliments.He squirms and squeals: he has done something That he needed And now he hears that it is okay. I scratch his ears. I turn him over And touch him everywhere. He isWild with the okayness of it. Then we walk, then He has breakfast, and he is happy.This is a poem about Percy.This is a poem about more than Percy.Think about it.”

“In my godless household, poems were the closest we came to sacred speech -- the only prayers said.”

“Far off in the red mangroves an alligator has heaved himself onto a hummock of grass and lies there, studying his poems.”