I think reading Shakespeare’s plays when I was young was extremely important. He had the ability to make utter strangers come alive.
I loved to read, but I always thought that the dream was too far away. The person who had written the book was a god, it wasn’t a person.
I see a resurgence of interest in poetry. I am less optimistic about the prospects for the arts when it comes to federal funding.
It’s unfortunate that sometimes in schools, there’s this need to have things quantified and graded.
My father is a chemist, my mother was a homemaker. My parents instilled in us the feeling that learning was the most exciting thing that could happen to you, and it never ends.
To practice your scales, so to speak, in order play the symphony, is what you have to do as a young poet.
Have you ever heard a good joke? If you’ve ever heard someone just right, with the right pacing, then you’re already on the way to poetry. It’s about using words in very precise ways and using gesture.
I always loved science. And in fact, I got a science award in high school. I mean, I loved science, but I think I loved literature more.
Being Poet Laureate made me realize I was capable of a larger voice. There is a more public utterance I can make as a poet.
I was appointed Poet Laureate. It came totally out of the blue because most Poet Laureates had been considerably older than I. It was not something that I even had begun to dream about!
Instead of trying to come up and pontificate on what literature is, you need to talk with children, to teachers, and make sure they get poetry in the curriculum early.
Listen how they say your name. If they can’t say that right, there’s no way they’re going to know how to treat you proper, neither.
When we are touched by something it’s as if we’re being brushed by an angel’s wings.
Poetry connects you to yourself, to the self that doesn’t know how to talk or negotiate.
Courage has nothing to do with our determination to be great. It has to do with what we decide in that moment when we are called upon to be more.
Crassly put: When I write, I am trying not to bore myself and my readers.
What writing does is to reveal.
The sound of the mandolin is a very curious sound because it’s cheerful and melancholy at the same time, and I think it comes from that shadow string, the double strings.
If you can’t be free, be a mystery.
What is ironic is that Allen Ginsberg’s importance was in its twilight for so many years that it took his death to bring it to the front page. He electrified an entire world!