For the past thirty years or so, much American poetry has been marked by an earnestness that rejects the comic. This has nothing to do with seriousness. The comic can be very serious. The trouble...

Hesitancy is the surest destroyer of talent. One cannot be timorous and reticent, one must be original and loud. New metaphors, new rhythms, new expressions of emotion can only spring from unhindered gall. Nothing should...

Most women are more into real estate than sex. They want to own you.

It was as if pain were a room he had entered and the door had been locked behind him.

The obsession was gone. We liked each other, even loved each other. And our sex was still good, but the hunger was gone. Either it just wore out or we wore each other out. A...

These people you used to see every day, friends or acquaintances, after a while they become as distant as any stranger, people you suddenly recall late at night–you remember something they said or something silly...

Why are doors more difficult to openas if some sadness were leaning against them?Why do windows darken and trees bendwhen there is no wind? You call that occasionalroar the roar of a plane and I...

One writes a poem when one is so taken up by an emotional concept that one is unable to remain silent.