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

“My words are the garment of what I shall never be Like the tucked sleeve of a one-armed boy.”

“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.”

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

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

“with the night falling we are saying thank youwe are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railingswe are running out of the glass roomswith our mouths full of food to look at the skyand say thank youwe are standing by the water looking outin different directionsback from a series of hospitals back from a muggingafter funerals we are saying thank youafter the news of the deadwhether or not we knew them we are saying thank youin a culture up to its chin in shameliving in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank youover telephones we are saying thank youin doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevatorsremembering wars and the police at the back doorand the beatings on stairs we are saying thank youin the banks that use us we are saying thank youwith the crooks in office with the rich and fashionableunchanged we go on saying thank you thank youwith the animals dying around usour lost feelings we are saying thank youwith the forests falling faster than the minutesof our lives we are saying thank youwith the words going out like cells of a brainwith the cities growing over us like the earthwe are saying thank you faster and fasterwith nobody listening we are saying thank youwe are saying thank you and wavingdark though it is”

“For a Coming ExtinctionGray whaleNow that we are sending you to The EndThat great godTell himThat we who follow you invented forgivenessAnd forgive nothingI write as though you could understandAnd I could say itOne must always pretend somethingAmong the dyingWhen you have left the seas nodding on their stalksEmpty of youTell him that we were madeOn another dayThe bewilderment will diminish like an echoWinding along your inner mountainsUnheard by usAnd find its way outLeaving behind it the futureDeadAnd oursWhen you will not see againThe whale calves trying the lightConsider what you will find in the black gardenAnd its courtThe sea cows the Great Auks the gorillasThe irreplaceable hosts ranged countlessAnd fore-ordaining as starsOur sacrificesJoin your word to theirsTell himThat it is we who are important”