I wrote poetry in a secretive way, I think, a secret from myself, I mean. I wrote it because it gave me great pleasure to do so and because it reliev….

My father's death when I was eighteen and his struggles as a Jewish immigrant provided me with the raw material, but for a long time I went from pain….

Happiness is a powerful thing. It freed me to do what I always wanted to do..

My first sense of myself was as an artist, a painter. I would see a Van Gogh painting and just love it, the more emotional and passionate the more it….

Every artist has his or her struggle to work out in their work. The more powerful the struggle, the more persuasive the art..

I'm the kind of father I wanted my father to be. That may be the sweetest revenge..

To pay for my father's funeral I borrowed money from people he already owed money to. One called him a nobody. No, I said, he was a failure. You can'….

Emotional truth is the reward of digging deeply enough to find the truth about how one really feels, but in order to convey this truth with any force….

My poems often start with an idea, some kind of inspiration. I don't expect anything. Every now and then something like "The One Truth" comes out..

There are real facts in my poems, but facts mixed up in the perverse stubborn stew of imagination, add a pinch or two of revenge and retribution, a d….

Art is a crime scene in a sense, a crucible, of the mind and heart and our dreams..