A verbal art like poetry is reflective it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become.

Before people complain of the obscurity of modern poetry, they should first examine their consciences and ask themselves with how many people and on how many occasions they have genuinely and profoundly shared some experience with another.

Every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders, that he is a literary aristocracy of one.

Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.

I never really liked poetry readings I liked to read poetry by myself, but I liked singing, chanting my lyrics to this jazz group.

I always thought that poetry is the verdict that others give to a certain kind of writing. So to call yourself a poet is a kind of dangerous description. It's for others it's for others to use.

I think the term poet is a very exalted term and should be applied to a man at the end of his work. When he looks back over the body of his work and he's written poetry then let the verdict be that he's a poet.

Well you can't teach the poetry, but you can teach the craft.

The only thing that can save the world is the reclaiming of the awareness of the world. That's what poetry does.

I have nothing to say, I am saying it, and that is poetry.