I think that great poetry is the most interesting and complex use of the poet's language at that point in history and so it's even more exciting when you read a poet like Yeats almost 100 years old now and you think that perhaps no one can really top that.

There is probably nothing wrong with art for art's sake if we take the phrase seriously and not take it to mean the kind of poetry written in England forty years ago.

Today the U.S. is farther from being nourished by poetry than it was a hundred years ago when books of poems were best-sellers.

I was very interested in American poetry for many years. Much less now.

I don't think American poetry has gotten any better in the past 35 years. Oddly enough creative writing programs seem to have been good for fiction and I would not have predicted that.

Teaching writing over the years intrudes on your own writing in important ways taking away some of the excitement of poetry.

In my late teenage years I developed a real passion for it and wrote a lot of poetry.

I thought to spend my declining years writing poetry and teaching - but that won't pay the Bergdorf's bill. I think I'll move to somewhere life is cheaper.

I gave up on new poetry myself 30 years ago when most of it began to read like coded messages passing between lonely aliens in a hostile world.

To this day I don't ever remember seeing a pet inside Moscow I never saw anyone carrying a dog or leading a dog. Err I finally saw a a pet some years later in Kiev so I thought that life must have been different.

As they say one thing led to another and ultimately the British and Irish governments asked me to serve as chairman of the peace negotiations which ironically began six years ago this week.

The experts who managed the original Marshall Plan say Afghanistan needs a commitment of at least $5 to $10 billion over 5 to 10 years coupled with occupation forces of 250 000 Allied soldiers to keep the peace throughout the country.

Through the years I have received my share of recognition for efforts in the fields of sports the arts the struggle for full citizenship for the Negro people labor's rights and the fight for peace.

All through the years since World War II the Japanese people have I am convinced made strenuous efforts to preserve and promote world peace contributing to the progress and prosperity of mankind.

I have many times asked myself whether there can be more potent advocates of peace upon earth through the years to come than this massed multitude of silent witnesses to the desolation of war.

There has not been a war in South America for fifty years and I have every confidence that the countries of Central and South America are deeply in earnest in the maintenance of peace.

I know that. I'm having a ball. I'm not slap happy. I'm just filled up with joy and with peace and with all kinds of things that have eluded me for quite a few years. And they're back and they're thriving.

I am 73 years old. I've seen everything. I've met the kings the queens the presidents I've been around the world. I have one thing that I would like to do: to try to reach peace.

If our nation goes over a financial Niagara we won't have much strength and eventually we won't have peace. We are currently borrowing the entire defense budget from foreign investors. Within a few years we will be spending more on interest payments than on national security. That is not as our military friends say a 'robust strategy.'

But if our nation goes over a financial Niagara we won't have much strength and eventually we won't have peace. We are currently borrowing the entire defense budget from foreign investors. Within a few years we will be spending more on interest payments than on national security. That is not as our military friends say a 'robust strategy.'

The years of the economic depression have been years of political reaction and that is why the economic crisis has generated a world peace crisis.

Success is not assured but America is resolute: this is the best chance for peace we are likely to see for some years to come - and we are acting to help Israelis and Palestinians seize this chance.

When I was in the Peace Corps I never made a phone call. I was in Central Africa I didn't make a phone call for two years. I was in Uganda for another four years and I didn't make a phone call. So for six years I didn't make a phone call but I wrote letters I wrote short stories I wrote books.

It has been after all 11 years more than a decade now of defiance of U.N. resolutions by Saddam Hussein. Every obligation that he signed onto after the Gulf War so that he would not be a threat to peace and security he has ignored and flaunted.