At certain times I read a lot of poetry. My favorite poets are Shelley and Keats. Rimbaud is so identifiable. Lord Byron. I don't know. Lately if I read poems, it's like I can always hear the guitar. Even with Shakespeare's sonnets I can hear a melody because it's all broken up into timed phrases so I hear it. I always keep thinking, 'What kind of song would this be?'

I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I'll die like a poet.

I think a poet is anybody who wouldn't call himself a poet.

A poem is a naked person . . . Some people say that I am a poet.

You don't necessarily have to write to be a poet. Some people work in gas stations and they're poets. I don't call myself a poet because I don't like the word. I'm a trapeze artist.

And every one of them words rang true and glowed like burnin' coal. Pourin' off of every page, like it was written in my soul from me to you.