I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering.

Never discuss the poem you contemplate writing. It's like turning on the outside spigot. It takes all the pressure off the upstairs bathroom.

Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting.

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.

A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.

I am not a nature poet. There is almost always a person in my poems.