"Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during the moment."

"Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood."

"A poem is true if it hangs together. Information points to something else. A poem points to nothing but itself."

"Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things."

"Poetry is a packsack of invisible keepsakes."

"Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words."

"Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable. Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away."

"A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep."

"If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the inquisition might have let him alone."

"Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason."