think

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

It was through poetry I learned just to appreciate my own voice and to not think of my voice in terms of what it needs to be able to do, but what it can do.

I don't think poetry is something that can be taught. We can encourage young writers, but what you can't teach them is the very essence of poetry.

I read a little bit of nonfiction and a lot of poetry. I think of poetry as my shot of whiskey when I don't have time to savor a whole bottle of wine.

I think poetry's always a kind of faith. It is the kind that I have.

When it comes to poetry, I think partly the numbers of people attempting to write poems is probably a result or the reaction to technology.

I don't think anybody reads a book of poetry front to back. Editors and reviewers only. I don't think anybody else does.

I'd say people do need some help with poetry because I think poetry just helps takes us to places that Americans aren't always accustomed to going.

I think when kids just see well-crafted poetry, it's just obtuse to them. It's hard to relate to.

I think poetry is a fabulous medium to encapsulate thoughts far more precisely than prose.

When I became poet laureate, I was in a slightly uncomfortable position because I think a lot of poetry isn't worth reading.

People think of poetry as a school subject... Poetry is very frustrating to students because they don't have a taste for ambiguity, for one thing. That gives them a poetry hangover.

I don't think you can read poetry while you're watching television very well.

There have always been great defenses of poetry, and I've tried to write mine, and I think all of my work and criticism is a defense of poetry to try and keep something alive in poetry.

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.

The middle class is doing fine in fiction. But it's not what gets me going. I love the working class, and everyone from it I've met, and think they're incredibly witty, inventive - there's a lot of poetry there.

The muse, the beloved, and duende are three ways of thinking of what is the source of poetry, and all three seem to me different names or different ways to think about something that is not entirely reasonable, not entirely subject to the will, not entirely rational.

Alchemy is the art of far and near, and I think poetry is alchemy in that way. It's delightful to distort size, to see something that's tiny as though it were vast.