I Have An Inward Treasure Born With

I Do Not Think [poetry] Is More, Or Less, Necessary Than Food, Shelter, Health, Education, Decent Working Conditions. It Is As Necessary.

All New Learning Looks At First Like Chaos.

Art, Whose Honesty Must Work Through Artifice, Cannot Avoid Cheating Truth.

The Impulse To Create Begins - Often Terribly And Fearfully - In A Tunnel Of Silence. Every Real Poem Is The Breaking Of An Existing Silence, And The First Question We Might Ask Any Poem Is, What Kind Of Voice Is Breaking Silence, And What Kind Of Silence Is Being Broken?

It Is The Suffering Of Ambivalence: The Murderous Alternation Between Bitter Resentment And Raw-edged Nerves, And Blissful Gratification And Tenderness