For me concrete poetry was a particular way of using language which came out of a particular feeling, and I don't have control over whether this feeling is in me or not.

I think there was a revolution in poetry, associated chiefly with Eliot and Pound; but maybe it is of the nature of revolutions or of the nature of history that their innovations should later come to look trivial or indistinguishable from technical tricks.

Because people are very interested in my poetry, in what I say.

We all need ways to express ourselves, and poetry is one of mine.

I was apprehensive. I feared every time I talked about poetry, it would be filtered through the lens of race, sex, and age.

Have you ever heard a good joke? If you've ever heard someone just right, with the right pacing, then you're already on the way to poetry. It's about using words in very precise ways and using gesture.

My next project is to get back to that. Actually, to learn how to write poetry. I'm not kidding.

For me, poetry is a situation - a state of being, a way of facing life and facing history.

I hardly remember how I started to write poetry. It's hard to imagine what I thought poetry could do.

I like the beauty of Faulkner's poetry. But I don't like his themes, not at all.

Frankly, writing poetry for children is plain old fun, and I consider myself blessed to have such a delightful career.

The first function of poetry is to tell the truth, to learn how to do that, to find out what you really feel and what you really think.

I try to show what it is about language and music that enthralls, because I think those are the two elements of poetry.

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.

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

Well, I had this little notion - I started writing when I was eleven, writing poetry. I was passionately addicted to it; it was my great refuge through adolescence.

While I've had a great distaste for what's usually called song in modern poetry or for what's usually called music, I really don't think of speech as so far from song.

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.

I look for poetry in English because it's the only language I read.

And my father was a comic. He could play any musical instrument. He loved to perform. He was a wonderfully comedic character. He had the ability to dance and sing and charm and analyze poetry.

There are distinct duties of a poet laureate. I plan a reading series at the Library of Congress and advise the librarian. The rest is how I want to promote poetry.

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

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.

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