"The idea of avant-garde art is a very suspicious thing to me, the idea that poetry is new and it keeps being new the way Chevrolets every year are new."

"I don't think American poetry has gotten any better in the past 35 years. Oddly enough, creative writing programs seem to have been good for fiction, and I would not have predicted that."

"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."

"Philip Larkin has a tough honesty and sense of humor that I find irresistible, as a contemporary poet."

"A mindful spirit recognizes that the silence between the notes creates the music."

"The poetry community here has been extraordinarily welcoming."

"The gays like 'Project Runway' because it's a fashion, and the gays are into fashion and into design. It's a creative industry, and most of the gays are pretty creative, in general. That's just like the culture. We're not all into politics necessarily. We're more into the creative environment. I also think Heidi is a big draw. The boys love Heidi and think she's so fabulous. I just think it's a glitzy, fun show, and there are also always lots of gay boys on it, and, you know, that's fun."

"I believe that all poetry is formal in that it exists within limits, limits that are either inherited by tradition or limits that language itself imposes."