The older I've got the less I find myself going back and re-reading or really reading new fiction or poetry.

Poetry criticism at its worst today is mean in spirit and spiteful in intent as if determined to inflict the wound that will spur the artist to new heights if it does not cripple him or her.

So much of my poetry begins with something that I can describe in visual terms so thinking about distance thinking about how life begins and what might be watching us.

Poetry must be made by all and not by one.

What does that represent? There was never any question in plastic art in poetry in music of representing anything. It is a matter of making something beautiful moving or dramatic - this is by no means the same thing.

I don't look on poetry as closed works. I feel they're going on all the time in my head and I occasionally snip off a length.

The mystic purchases a moment of exhilaration with a lifetime of confusion and the confusion is infectious and destructive. It is confusing and destructive to try and explain anything in terms of anything else poetry in terms of psychology.

Great poetry is always written by somebody straining to go beyond what he can do.

Let me read you some of my poetry. My poetry just takes me to another level.

This career essentially chased me down while I was on the spoken-word scene in New York. I kept hearing that my delivery of my poetry - which was very personal and cathartic at the time- was very moving to folks. People thought that I was an actress because of my delivery when I was just dropping into the work and really pouring out my soul.

You don't go after poetry you take what comes. Maybe the gods do it through me but I certainly do a hell of a lot of the work.

Don't call my lyrics poetry. It's an insult to real poets.

Poetry is of so subtle a spirit that in the pouring out of one language into another it will evaporate.

I started off in England and very few people knew I was Australian. I mean the clues were in the poems but they didn't read them very carefully and so for years and years I was considered completely part of the English poetry scene.

Theater and poetry were what helped people stay alive and want to go on living.

What is poetry which does not save nations or people?

There's not a good poet I know who has not at the beck and call of his memory a vast quantity of poetry that composes his mental library.

Religion is no more possible without prayer than poetry without language or music without atmosphere.

I don't think Auden liked my poetry very much he's very Anglican.

I think it was T.S. Eliot who talked about good poetry being felt before it's understood. I believe that. There are some bands where I love their lyrics but I don't have a clue what they're on about.

I found that it wasn't so oddball to like music and poetry and visual arts they're kindred spirits.

My father had wanted to name me for Dylan Thomas. He had seen him speak on one of those drunken poetry tours he did.

The urge to write poetry is like having an itch. When the itch becomes annoying enough you scratch it.

For poetry there exists neither large countries nor small. Its domain is in the heart of all men.