Reading A Good Poem Can Give Me

It Was As If Pain Were A Room He Had Entered And The Door Had Been Locked Behind Him.

My Wife's Dying Upstairs And I Can't Do Anything About It. I Look In Her Face And I See The Memories There. I See How I Hurt Her And How I Said The Wrong Things And How I Got Angry And How I Wasn't The Man She Hoped I'd Be. I See That In Her Face And I See She's Going To Die With That. You Think I'm Not Preoccupied?

Reading A Good Poem Can Give Me A Far Bigger Kick Than A Novel. But It's Not Something I Can Keep Doing. It Would Be Like Shooting Up 10 Times A Day.

These People You Used To See Every Day, Friends Or Acquaintances, After A While They Become As Distant As Any Stranger, People You Suddenly Recall Late At Night--you Remember Something They Said Or Something Silly That Someone Once Did. For A Few Moments They Completely Occupy Your Mind; Then You Forget Them Again.

My Poems Always Begin With A Metaphor, But My Way Into The Metaphor May Be A Word, An Image, Even A Sound. And I Rarely Know The Nature Of The Metaphor When I Begin To Write, But There Is An Attentiveness That A Writer Develops, A Sudden Alertness That Is Much Like The Feel Of A Fish Brushing Against A Hook.