“Modern poetry, for me, began not in English at all but in Spanish, in the poems of Lorca.”

“Poetry is a way of looking at the world for the first time.”

“Poetry is like making a joke. If you get one word wrong at the end of a joke, you've lost the whole thing.”

“We begin to say something that cannot be said. When you see on the front page a woman in Iraq who's just seen her husband blown up, you see her there, her mouth wide open, you know the sound coming out of her, a howl of grief and pain -- that's the beginning of language.Trying to express that, it's inexpressible, and poetry is really to say what can't be said. And that's why people turn to it in these moments. They don't know how to say this, [but] part of them feels that maybe a poem will say it. It won't say it, but it'll come closer to saying it than anything else will.I think there are always two sides, and one of them is the unsayable. The utterly singular. Who you are; who you can never tell anybody. And on the other hand, there is what you can express. How do we know about this thing we talk about? Because we talk about it. We're using words. And the words never say it, but the words are all we have to say it.”

“Send me out into another lifelord because this one is growing faintI do not think it goes all the way”

“Tell me what you see vanishing and I will tell you who you are”

“A BIRTHDAY Something continues and I don't know what to call itthough the language is full of suggestionsin the way of languagebut they are all anonymousand it's almost your birthday music next to my bonesthese nights we hear the horses running in the rainit stops and the moon comes out and we are still herethe leaks in the roof go on dripping after the rain has passedsmell of ginger flowers slips through the dark housedown near the sea the slow heart of the beacon flashesthe long way to you is still tied to me but it brought me to youI keep wanting to give you what is already yoursit is the morning of the mornings togetherbreath of summer oh my found onethe sleep in the same current and each waking to youwhen I open my eyes you are what I wanted to see.”