Sometimes, when I'm alone, I cry, 'cause I am on my own. The tears I cry are bitter and warm. They flow with life, but take no form. I cry because my heart is torn. I find it difficult to carry on. If I had an ear to confide in, I would cry among my treasured friends, but who do you know that stops that long, to help another carry on?

Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.

There are three things, after all, that a poem must reach: the eye, the ear, and what we may call the heart or the mind. It is the most important of all to reach the heart of the reader.

You can't get too much winter in the winter.

A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a homesickness or a love sickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.

The Vermont mountains stretch extended straight; New Hampshire mountains curl up in a coil.