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" I know the sag of the unfinished poem. And I know the release of the poem that is finished. "

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" I have the feeling that a lot of poets writing now are - they sort of tap dance through it. "

" I love the line of Flaubert about observing things very intensely. I think our duty as writers begins not with our own feelings, but with the powers of observing. "

" To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go. "

" I decided very early that I wanted to write. But I didn't think of it as a career. I didn't even think of it as a profession... It was the most exciting thing, the most powerful thing, the most wonderful thing to do with my life. "

" I'd rather write about polar bears than people. "

" I think one thing is that prayer has become more useful, interesting, fruitful, and... almost involuntary in my life. "

" Writers sometimes give up what is most strange and wonderful about their writing - soften their roughest edges - to accommodate themselves toward a group response. "

" People want poetry. They need poetry. They get it. They don't want fancy work. "

" Sometimes breaking the rules is extending the rules. "

" The woods that I loved as a child are entirely gone. The woods that I loved as a young adult are gone. The woods that most recently I walked in are not gone, but they're full of bicycle trails. "

" You can fool a lot of yourself but you can't fool the soul. "

" If I've done my work well, I vanish completely from the scene. I believe it is invasive of the work when you know too much about the writer. "

" One thing I do know is that poetry, to be understood, must be clear. "

" Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? "

" We all have a hungry heart, and one of the things we hunger for is happiness. So as much as I possibly could, I stayed where I was happy. "

" Poetry is meant to be heard. "

" Poetry isn't a profession, it's a way of life. It's an empty basket; you put your life into it and make something out of that. "

" Poetry is one of the ancient arts, and it began as did all the fine arts, within the original wilderness of the earth. "

" To find a new word that is accurate and different, you have to be alert for it. "

" At the time I was growing up, literature was involved with the so-called confessional poets. And I was not interested in that. I did not think that specific and personal perspective functioned well for the reader at all. "

" Wasn't it Emerson who said, 'My life is for itself and not for a spectacle'? I have a happy, full, good life because I hold it private. "

" I consider myself kind of a reporter - one who uses words that are more like music and that have a choreography. I never think of myself as a poet; I just get up and write. "

" I had a very dysfunctional family, and a very hard childhood. So I made a world out of words. And it was my salvation. "

" I grew up in a confused house: too much unwanted attention or none at all. "

" It's very important to write things down instantly, or you can lose the way you were thinking out a line. I have a rule that if I wake up at 3 in the morning and think of something, I write it down. I can't wait until morning - it'll be gone. "

" I simply do not distinguish between work and play. "

" Words have not only a definition... but also the felt quality of their own kind of sound. "

" My first two books are out of print and, okay, they can sleep there comfortably. It's early work, derivative work. "

" I learn a lot about my poems when I read them by the way people respond to them. "

" I believe art is utterly important. It is one of the things that could save us. "