I can't understand these chaps who go around American universities explaining how they write poems: it's like going round explaining how you sleep with your wife.

A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it.

Love the earth and sun and animals, Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, Stand up for the stupid and crazy, Devote your income and labor to others... And your very flesh shall be a great poem.

I've written some poetry I don't understand myself.

Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.

There is a pleasure in poetic pains Which only poets know.

The finest poetry was first experience.

To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.

(Of one of his poems:) God and I both knew what it meant once; now God alone knows.

Poetry is a perfectly reasonable means of overcoming chaos.