I Think That The Job Of Poetry,

I Think That My Responsibility To My Art Is To Try To Get It Right Or To Push The Boundaries Of What I'm Able To Do In Any Way.

All The New Thinking Is About Loss. In This It Resembles All The Old Thinking

If You Were Making Poetry Out Of Convictions - Trying To Convince Other People - You Were In The Territory Of Rhetoric, And That Wasn't The Territory Of Poetry. I Think That's Pretty Smart. I Think That It Doesn't Need To Be Altogether True, But That Was My Starting Place.

It Was One Of The Great Mass Achievements Of American Civilization, And We Did It Because We Thought If You Were Going To Have A Democratic Form Of Government, People Had To Be Able To Read And Understand Complicated Ideas On Their Own.

As Poet Laureate, I Was Asked To Be A Spokesman For Literature. Then What I Decided Is I Am A Spokesman For This Other Imagination Of Community - Not The One Showing Up In The Market. Nobody Was Tending To The Way We're Imaginatively Connected To Each Other.