On July 26,1916, I announced to all my friends in America that from now on I resolved to write no more poems in the classical language, and to begin my experiments in writing poetry in the so-called vulgar tongue of the people.

There may be more poetry than justice in poetic justice.

Translation is an interestingly different way to be involved both with poetry and with the language that I've found myself living in much of the time. I think the two feed each other.

Poetry isn't a profession, it's a way of life. It's an empty basket you put your life into it and make something out of that.

Most poetry in the modern age has retreated to the private sphere, turning its back on the political realm.

Poetry is the most subtle of the literary arts, and students grow more ingenious by the year at avoiding it. If they can nip around Milton, duck under Blake and collapse gratefully into the arms of Jane Austen, a lot of them will.

I think that it's more likely that in my 60s and 70s I will be writing poetry rather than fiction.

Pound's translation of Chinese poetry was maybe the most important thing I read. Eliot a little bit later.

You have to really dive deep back into yourself and get rid of so much modern analytical categorization. It's one of the great things poetry does.

The great watershed of modern poetry is French, more than English.