Most poets in their youth begin in adolescent sadness. I find it more rewarding to end in gladness.
My major aim in writing is to set out flags and issue wake-up calls.
Consciousness is the glory of creation.
Dance, vaudeville, drama, movies – as a child I loved everything that went on in a theater.
We are all participants in the marvelous.
Work in the theater sharpened my verse and my cinema.
Most poets, like most people, try hard to be like someone they admire or they are possessed with an image of what they ought to be.
In the world of poetry there are would-be poets, workshop poets, promising poets, lovesick poets, university poets, and a few real poets.
I never wanted to dilute my private passion for the art by airing and arguing it in public.
I like things which appear fragile but are tough inside.
For me a poem has to sing out of itself and the lilt of it carries the magic.
You’re closer to your glory leaping an abyss than re-upholstering a rut.
Being identified as a poet in France or Denmark or India one is greeted with gracious respect.
Adversity is a stimulus.
Everything that ever happened is still happening. Past, present and future keep happening in the eternity which is Here and Now.
Acclaim is a distraction.
And to Shakespeare I owe my vision of the world as a theater, wherein all humans are acting out their parts.
My earliest poems sing of the absolute necessity of allowing love to invade and pervade one’s life. That can make the miracle happen in reality. Try it.
Ultimately I have learned more about poetry, from music and magic than from literature.
Life’s major challenge: getting reborn often enough.
Poetry for me is as much a spiritual practice as sexual ecstasy is.