"But tomorrow, dawn will come the way I picture her,barefoot and disheveled, standing outside my window in one of the …"

"I love the sound of the bone against the plate and the fortress-like look of it lying before me in a moat of risotto,…"

"But tonight, the lion of contentment has placed a warm heavy paw on my chest."

"You will always be the bread and the knife, not to mention the crystal goblet and — somehow — the wine."

"This is the beginning. Almost anything can happen. This is where you find the creation of light, a fish wriggling ont…"

"The complexity of women's undergarments in nineteenth-century America is not to be waved off, and I proceeded like a …"

"Novelists, playwrights, painters and others may hold in their heads the expectation of fame, but not poets. Having ch…"

"For the translator of poetry, there is no activity that brings you into a closer, more intimate contact with language…"

"It is important for the poet not to be emotional because you cannot see the world clearly with tears in your eyes."

"Poetry in America is no longer a dirty word. While it is still far from the center of the culture, it is moving slowl…"