Poetry operates by hints and dark suggestions. It is full of secrets and hidden formulae, like a witch's brew.

There is no gilding of setting sun or glamor of poetry to light up the ferocious and endless toil of the farmers' wives.

Poetry is at least an elegance and at most a revelation.

Journalism wishes to tell what it is that has happened everywhere as though the same things had happened for every man. Poetry wishes to say what it is like for any man to be himself in the presence of a particular occurrence as though only he were alone there.

Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, there is no reason either in football or in poetry why the two should not meet in a man's life if he has the weight and cares about the words.

If we ask a vague question, such as, 'What is poetry?' we expect a vague answer, such as, 'Poetry is the music of words,' or 'Poetry is the linguistic correction of disorder.'

Probably all the attention to poetry results in some value, though the attention is more often directed to lesser than to greater values.

I am grateful for - though I can't keep up with - the flood of articles, theses, and textbooks that mean to share insight concerning the nature of poetry.

Once every five hundred years or so, a summary statement about poetry comes along that we can't imagine ourselves living without.

Poetry leads us to the unstructured sources of our beings, to the unknown, and returns us to our rational, structured selves refreshed.