The poem is not a physical body. It's a textual body that has life only insofar as it can act symbolically. It cannot physically act.

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.

If we seek God first, we shall all other goodness.

He mentioned the connection between us. He identified with me. These are the things that many people want to hear, that most “normal” people want to be able to truthfully say, but almost no one can.

Be yourself because you weren't born to be anyone else

A decision made in anger, however it was rationalized, was poisoned with bias from its origins. The very fact that I had thought of the option wrathfully rendered it unusable.

How am I making you feel?”She considered the answer. “Like all my nerve endings are on fire. Like I want more, but I don’t exactly know how to ask for what I want.” She swallowed. “Or maybe I do.

The way in which we think of ourselves has everything to do with how our world sees us.

Sign language is my first language. English and Spanish are my second languages. I learned Spanish from my grandparents, sign language from my parents, and English from television.

Your self-worth has nothing to do with your craft or calling, and everything to do with how you treat yourself.

To make any gain some outlay is necessary.

Merit rather enforces respect than attracts fondness.