Narrative art the novel from Murasaki to Proust has produced great works of poetry.

I do not go in search of poetry. I wait for poetry to visit me.

However poetry does not live solely in books or in school anthologies.

Poetry is a natural energy resource of our country.It has no energy crisis possessing a potential that will last as long as the country. Its power is equal to that of any country in the world.

For me prose walks poetry dances.

The quietest poetry can be an explosion of joy.

In the world of poetry there are would-be poets workshop poets promising poets lovesick poets university poets and a few real poets.

Today the U.S. is farther from being nourished by poetry than it was a hundred years ago when books of poems were best-sellers.

I wrote things for the school's newspaper and - like all teenagers - I dabbled in poetry.

When I was asked to be Writer in Residence at Edinburgh I thought you can't teach poetry. This is ridiculous.

In fact a lot of them I think are absolute baloney. Those Charles Olsens and people like that. At first I was interested in seeing what they were up to what they were doing why they were doing it. They never moved me in the way that one is moved by true poetry.

I was very interested in American poetry for many years. Much less now.

I never think about poetry except when I'm writing it. I mean my poetry.

However I learned something. I thought that if the young person the student has poetry in him or her to offer them help is like offering a propeller to a bird.

And the second question can poetry be taught? I didn't think so.

And if they haven't got poetry in them there's nothing you can do that will produce it.

All those authors there most of whom of course I've never met. That's the poetry side that's the prose side that's the fishing and miscellaneous behind me. You get an affection for books that you've enjoyed.