“Always our wars have been our confessions of weakness”

“As we live our truths, we will communicate across all barriers, speaking for the sources of peace. Peace that is not lack of war, but fierce and positive.”

“In our time, they say there is no penalty for writing poems. They say this. This is the penalty.”

“We are against war and the sources of war. We are for poetry and the sources of poetry.”

“The fear of poetry is an indication that we are cut off from our own reality.”

“He said he would be back and we'd drink wine togetherHe said that everything would be better than beforeHe said we were on the edge of a new relationHe said he would never again cringe before his fatherHe said that he was going to invent full-timeHe said he loved me that going into meHe said was going into the world and the skyHe said all the buckles were very firmHe said the wax was the best waxHe said Wait for me here on the beachHe said Just don't cryI remember the gulls and the wavesI remember the islands going dark on the seaI remember the girls laughingI remember they said he only wanted to get away from meI remember mother saying : Inventors are like poets, a trashy lotI remember she told me those who try out inventions are worseI remember she added : Women who love such are the worst of allI have been waiting all day, or perhaps longer.I would have liked to try those wings myself.It would have been better than this.”

“American poetry has been part of a culture in conflict....We are a people tending toward democracy at the level of hope; at another level, the economy of the nation, the empire of business within the republic, both include in their basic premise the idea of perpetual warfare”