"From the reader's view, a poem is more demanding than prose."

"Pain is filtered in a poem so that it becomes finally, in the end, pleasure."

"Poetry is something that happens in universities, in creative writing programs or in English departments."

"I am not concerned with truth, nor with conventional notions of what is beautiful."

"I certainly can't speak for all cultures or all societies, but it's clear that in America, poetry serves a very marginal purpose. It's not part of the cultural mainstream."

"But I tend to think of the expressive part of me as rather tedious - never curious or responsive, but blind and self-serving."

"It's very hard to write humor."

"I tend to like poems that engage me - that is to say, which do not bore me."

"There's a certain point, when you're writing autobiographical stuff, where you don't want to misrepresent yourself. It would be dishonest."

"Usually a life turned into a poem is misrepresented."

"I think the best American poetry is the poetry that utilizes the resources of poetry rather than exploits the defects or triumphs of the poet's personality."

"Poetry is, first and last, language - the rest is filler."

"And Robert Lowell, of course - in his poems, we're not located in his actual life. We're located more in the externals, in the journalistic facts of his life."

"A life is not sufficiently elevated for poetry, unless, of course, the life has been made into an art."

"I believe that all poetry is formal in that it exists within limits, limits that are either inherited by tradition or limits that language itself imposes."

"And at least in poetry you should feel free to lie. That is, not to lie, but to imagine what you want, to follow the direction of the poem."

"A great many people seem to think writing poetry is worthwhile, even though it pays next to nothing and is not as widely read as it should be."

"Nothing is the destiny of everyone, it is our commonness made dumb."

"And yet, in a culture like ours, which is given to material comforts, and addicted to forms of entertainment that offer immediate gratification, it is surprising that so much poetry is written."

"The number of people writing poems is vast, and their reasons for doing so are many, that much can be surmised from the stacks of submissions."

"I would say that American poetry has always been a poetry of personal testimony."

"The future is always beginning now."