I’ve never stopped wanting to cross the equator, or touch an
don’t think you can ever forget her don’t even try she’s not going to budgeno choice but to grant her spacecrown her with skyfor she is one of the manyand she is each of us
Since she’s discoveredmen would rather drownthan nibble,she does just fine.
Women invented misery, but we don’t understand it.
Our situation is intolerable, but what’s worseis to sit here and do nothing.
I was pirouette and flourish,I was filigree and flame.How could I count my blessingswhen I didn’t know their names?
Against Self-PityIt gets you nowhere but deeper intoyour own shit–pure misery a luxuryone never learns to enjoy.
I tell you, if you feel strange, strange things will happen to you: Fallen peacocks on library shelves
Equality and self-determination should never be divided in the name of religious or ideological fervor.
My father is a chemist, my mother was a homemaker. My parents instilled in us the feeling that learning was the most exciting thing that could happen to you, and it never ends.
I think that you certainly don’t have to be aged and travel the world to write a poem.
If we really want to be full and generous in spirit, we have no choice but to trust at some level.
Without imagination we can go nowhere. And imagination is not restricted to the arts. Every scientist I have met who has been a success has had to imagine.
You have to imagine it possible before you can see something. You can have the evidence right in front of you, but if you can’t imagine something that has never existed before, it’s impossible.
Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.
Have you ever heard a good joke? If you’ve ever heard someone just right, with the right pacing, then you’re already on the way to poetry. It’s about using words in very precise ways and using gesture.
Instead of trying to come up and pontificate on what literature is, you need to talk with children, to teachers, and make sure they get poetry in the curriculum early.
I try to show what it is about language and music that enthralls, because I think those are the two elements of poetry.
There are distinct duties of a poet laureate. I plan a reading series at the Library of Congress and advise the librarian. The rest is how I want to promote poetry.
I was apprehensive. I feared every time I talked about poetry, it would be filtered through the lens of race, sex, and age.
I see a resurgence of interest in poetry. I am less optimistic about the prospects for the arts when it comes to federal funding.
The poetry that sustains me is when I feel that, for a minute, the clouds have parted and I’ve seen ecstasy or something.