I was always making up rhymes. But I never thought that poetry would become my life.

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

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.

I've never read a political poem that's accomplished anything. Poetry makes things happen but rarely what the poet wants.

I never thought I'd be doing poetry books. I never really studied poetry. But the first one I did was after my mother died and I realized that people sort of think and talk about her style and fashion but in fact what made her the person she was was really her love of reading and ideas.

Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded.

I never really liked poetry readings I liked to read poetry by myself but I liked singing chanting my lyrics to this jazz group.

Poetry is the work of poets not of peoples or communities artistic creation can never be anything but the production of an individual mind.

Every now and then I read a poem that does touch something in me but I never turn to poetry for solace or pleasure in the way that I throw myself into prose.

Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them.

One will never again look at a birch tree after the Robert Frost poem in exactly the same way.

He who draws noble delights from sentiments of poetry is a true poet though he has never written a line in all his life.

A poem is never finished only abandoned.

To this day I don't ever remember seeing a pet inside Moscow I never saw anyone carrying a dog or leading a dog. Err I finally saw a a pet some years later in Kiev so I thought that life must have been different.

It's true you can never eat a pet you name. And anyway it would be like a ventriloquist eating his dummy.

I had a big Akita Yoshi who was fabulous. I loved him. We lost him when he was 12 and I've never been able to replace him. Normally most people lose a pet and get another and keep going on. But it just felt wrong to me it felt disloyal.