In rap music even though the element of poetry is very strong so is the element of the drum the implication of the dance. Without the beat its commercial value would certainly be more tenuous.

To know anything of a poet but his poetry is so far as the poetry is concerned to know something that may be entertaining even delightful but is certainly inessential.

That's a wonderful change that's taken place and so most poetry today is published if not directly by the person certainly by the enterprise of the poet himself working with his friends.

I love painting and music of course. I don't know nearly as much about them as I know about poetry. I've certainly been influenced by fiction. I was overwhelmed by War and Peace when I read it and I didn't read it until I was in my late 20s.

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.

My obsession with time informs my poetry so completely it is hard for me to summarize it. We want time to pass for new things to happen to us we want to hold on to certain moments we don't want our lives to end.

Art works because it appeals to certain faculties of the mind. Music depends on details of the auditory system painting and sculpture on the visual system. Poetry and literature depend on language.

True poetry is similar to certain pictures whose owner is unknown and which only a few initiated people know.

Unfortunately poetry is not born in noise in crowds or on a bus. There have to be four walls and the certainty that the telephone will not ring. That's what writing is all about.

Prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry on the other hand poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose.

Perhaps no person can be a poet or even enjoy poetry without a certain unsoundness of mind.

I certainly derived my skills as a prose writer from my scrutiny of poetry and of the individual word. But schools don't do things like that anymore - tracking words down to their roots.

I always thought that poetry is the verdict that others give to a certain kind of writing. So to call yourself a poet is a kind of dangerous description. It's for others it's for others to use.

As an actor there is room for a certain amount of creativity but you're always ultimately going to be saying somebody else's words. I don't think I'd have the stamina skill or ability to write a novel but I'd love to write short stories and poetry because those are my two passions.

We cannot have peace if we are only concerned with peace. War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life. If we want to attack war we have to attack that way of life.

Certainly protecting oppressed people stopping ethnic conflict and promoting responsible governance are worthy goals. But none is as important for American security and prosperity as keeping the peace in the Middle East Europe and East Asia.

There is always a certain peace in being what one is in being that completely.