A lot of people think 'I'll give acting or poetry or filmmaking a try. And if it doesn't work out I'll go get a law degree do something else that's more practical.' For me I went the reverse way. I lived the back-up plan.

I'm not really one for fancy big words and poetry and the scriptwriters worked very hard on 'Paradise Lost' to translate it.

I know I'm not a wordsmith. And I don't write poetry. Sometimes I think I should because it's really helpful. But I always wanted to write novels.

I think that's what poetry does. It allows people to come together and identify with a common thing that is outside of themselves but which they identify with from the interior.

My favorite subject probably was math. I love math. Figures just intrigue me. I was really good at math. English probably was my worst subject. But I used to write a lot of poetry. I used to write poetry all the time.

I don't like to boast but I have probably skipped more poetry than any other person of my age and weight in this country.

I knew what book we had to write it was clear in my head it was journals and poetry. So I passed on their offer. I told my agent this is our vision and no one's done it this way.

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

This proves that great lyric poetry can die be reborn die again but will always remain one of the most outstanding creations of the human soul.

There is poetry even in prose in all the great prose which is not merely utilitarian or didactic: there exist poets who write in prose or at least in more or less apparent prose millions of poets write verses which have no connection with poetry.

There is also poetry written to be shouted in a square in front of an enthusiastic crowd. This occurs especially in countries where authoritarian regimes are in power.

Slowly poetry becomes visual because it paints images but it is also musical: it unites two arts into one.

Poetry is the art which is technically within the grasp of everyone: a piece of paper and a pencil and one is ready.

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.