“Poetry is ordinary language raised to the nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.”

“I don't understand the whole thrilling verse, but I love the way poetry turns ordinary words into winged things that rise up and soar!”

“Verse is not written, it is bled; Out of the poet's abstract head. Words drip the poem on the page; Out of his grief, delight and rage.”

“Poetry is a separate language, or more specifically, a language within a language.”

“Before Elijah could raise a nation from the dead, he raised just one dead child.”

“A tough life needs a tough language—and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers—a language powerful enough to say how it is.”

“Poetry is to prose as dancing is to walking.”