I think the best American poetry is the poetry that utilizes the resources of poetry rather than exploits the defects or triumphs of the poet's personality.

But I tend to think of the expressive part of me as rather tedious - never curious or responsive, but blind and self-serving.

I'd rather be nauseous than tired, I think.

I have been eating poetry.

When we walk in the sun
our shadows are like barges of silence.

These wrinkles are nothing
These gray hairs are nothing,
This stomach which sags
with old food, these bruised
and swollen ankles,
my darkening brain,
they are nothing.
I am the same boy
my mother used to kiss.