The average political poem - especially the kind that wears this label all too proudly - is both dull and full of brow-beating triteness.

Poetry either pulses with real life or it's just an aborted simulacra. There's no middle ground.

Fear knows no borders, and the terminology of hate has seeped into every aspect of life.

One cannot simply decide to write apolitical poetry, in the way one decides to drink lemonade instead of tea, it's far more subliminal than that.

Everyone wants to be open and inclusive, but nobody wants to pay for it. It's the biggest roadblock to translating living writers, especially poets.

I've heard of translators collaborating closely with their authors, sometimes even living with them for a while, but that's not me.

I can't quite see the point of poems like "Wittgenstein Goes for a Walk with A Hawk in Sherwood Forest." I know they're trying to be clever, but they're not.

I don't like poems that invent memories, I have enough of my own.

As Trevor Noah recently quipped, the US appears ready to crown its first African dictator: Donald Trump.

Most of us have been subjected to terrible political poetry at least once or twice in our lifetimes, and so we tend to shy away from it.

When it comes to the challenges of the actual process, I soldier on as best I can, on my own.

It’s a picture of hope because the kid without his legs? The one burned and cut and deathly pale? He lived.And he’s going to be fine.

A celebrity farts, and everyone endures, but the unpopular will be thrased to death.

In this world goodness is destined to be defeated. But a man must go down fighting. That is the victory. To do anything less is to be less than a man.

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.

I'm sometimes critical about other artists who come out with something different until maybe I hear the music. If the music is there, then they did their job, and I'll enjoy the CD.

It's nice to be included in the broadcast food chain.

I mean five thousand years ago people emerge out of nowhere -sproing!- with brains and everything and begin wrecking the planet. You'd think we'd give the issue a little more thought than we do.

There have been few things in my life which have had a more genial effect on my mind than the possession of a piece of land.

Writing is a necessity and often a pleasure, but at the same time, it can be a great burden and a terrible struggle.

I believe all men, all women, regardless of race, gender, socioeconomic background, you deserve the same rights.