The foot can march or it can dance, but it cannot stand still until end-stopped.

Writing a poem is unwriting a knot, like untying a shoelace that is clubbing your foot.

New formalism is writing with language as flow, like the flow from a dam, running through a desert that has had no rain for decades.

Poetry must speak of others, in order to speak for the poet's imagination, in order to speak of itself; it is slowed down by poetics after its flight is over.

As I grew older - and even when I was younger - it had puzzled me why I continued and continue to be heterosexual.

Poetry has roots, but they are sometimes cut off and still poetry is written.

At a certain point, the struggles with teaching and mothering and so on and so forth, those decline, those lessen.

I'm in my 60s, and a cancer scare just makes you more aware of mortality.

Working women went through a time when they believed that.

[My muse] she's impatient with me, because I don't do what I should do: sit down and write.

Agency over one's sexual self - and the articulation of that kind of agency - might seem transgressive to readers who don't expect it in a woman's text.

Love consists of this: two solitudes that meet, protect and greet each other.

I can't believe I did a peace sign on TV - like Ringo Starr!

Clothes should be as interesting on the inside as on the outside. Even if you enjoy it totally alone, it's important.

Memory, when duly impregnated with ascertained facts, is sometimes surprisingly fertile.

I know that the human being and the fish can coexist peacefully.

We always marry someone for the purpose of finishing our childhood.

I've made peace with myself. Good for you. That's the hardest war of all to win. Didn't say I won. Just stopped fighting.

Hand Grasps at hand, eye lights eye in good friendship, And great hearts expand And grow one in the sense of this world's life.

You want an idea that not many other people are working on, and it's okay if it doesn't sound big at first.

I ran my first sub-4-minute mile in 1977 and since then have run 136 more. Nobody has run as many sub-4s as I have, and I intend to run at least one more.