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.

Poetry is, first and last, language - the rest is filler.

Poetry is something that happens in universities, in creative writing programs or in English departments.

I would say that American poetry has always been a poetry of personal testimony.

I think the best American poetry is the poetry that utilizes the resources of poetry rather than exploits the defects or triumphs of the poet's personality.