Occupation: Poet Birth: March 23, 1940
One of the most important differences I see between prose and poetry is the music of the language..
I have thought for many years that the audience any creative writer imagines has a great effect on what gets written..
For me, prose is never a poem. Because with prose there are so very few tools to create the music. And one of the most important tools missing is the….
People sometimes think that defining a term is pedantic and useless, but terms need to be defined if they're going to be discussed, even if the terms….
I don't write or think too much about the word "salvation." I might; I probably should. We are such needy creatures, needing to be saved, to feel we ….
If I'm excited by something bodily, and curious about it, I generally want to delve into it and explore it with poetry. That's the way I ordinarily w….
I think my prose - mine and that of others - sometimes slips into a cadence or rhythm that can replicate or come close to the music in a wonderful po….
Often I'm struck by something that I read; then I go and research it a little more, especially if I begin a poem, and I find out that I need to know ….
It sounds old-fashioned to say, but we have some kind of purpose for being here, not poets or writers, but all of us humans..
We're all vulnerable in our various ways, and what we are physically, our bodies, is what has developed with the goal of keeping that life safe and i….
I think parts of my soul have been saved by my writing, not in the sense of escaping death, but escaping the death of the moment, perhaps..
I'm primarily a poet, so I'd have to say in my case I'd investigate the mystery in poetry in a different way than prose might investigate it, in a wa….
The silences express so much and are so crucial in music, and prose does not allow for the creation of these silences, these white spaces on the page….
I approach writing a poem in a much different state than when I am writing prose. It's almost as if I were working in a different language when I'm w….
As far as I can tell, writing the essays didn't change the way I wrote poetry. Although the essays contain scattered passages that might be called ly….
My object when writing prose is to write as clearly as possible. I think I know what I'm saying in prose, and I want others to understand it and to b….
Sometimes, as in an athletic event where everything clicks, inexplicable things do happen. Learning and practicing an art or a skill has always been ….
I'm all in favor of poets telling about the process as much as they can. And many do..
I think the language of science is highly lyrical and evocative and an important part of our lives in many ways..
Often when I write poetry I don't quite know what I'm saying myself. I mean, I can't restate the poem. The meaning of the poem is the poem..
Poetry is very playful with language. I think all poetry, at its heart, is playful. It's doing unusual and playful things with the language, stirring….