I was influenced by surrealist poetry and painting as were thousands of other people and it seems to me to have become a part of the way I write but it's not.

Most people can't tell now who wrote what. I like that blurring of identities within the band. because it becomes a unified thing that can't be related to other forms of historical poetry.

Even the people who have had success and made money writing these books of fiction seem to feel the need to pretend it's no big deal or part of a natural progression from poetry to fiction but often it's really just about the money the perceived prestige.

A great many people seem to think writing poetry is worthwhile even though it pays next to nothing and is not as widely read as it should be.

I think I'm a very good reader of poetry but obviously like everybody I have a set of criteria for reading poems and I'm not shy about presenting them so if people ask for my critical response to a poem I tell them what works and why and what doesn't work and why.

And I know I'm supposed to feel guilty for wanting people to buy my books... and books in general? Novels and poetry they belong to the realm of art. How dirty of us to try to hawk art! But after a decade of hand-wringing and apologies I can't quite muster the guilt anymore.

The same people who are murdered slowly in the mechanized slaughterhouses of work are also arguing singing drinking dancing making love holding the streets picking up weapons and inventing a new poetry.

And there are a lot more people reading poetry but there are not so many people reading an individual poet.

The more poetry you have in the head the more poetry you will understand because you will be getting to the roots of what it is that makes people write poetry at all.

Poetry was invented as an mnemonic device to enable people to remember their prayers.

I see people who talk about America and then undermine it by not paying attention to its soul to its poetry. I see polarization reductionism and superficiality.

Naming a baby is an act of poetry for many people the only creative moment of their lives.

So poetry becomes a means for useful dialogue between people who are not only unknown but mute to each other. It produces a dialogue among people that guards all of us against manipulation by our so-called leaders.

Reading a piece of poetry with no beat in front of 20 people is way more challenging than rocking for 10 000 people.

More people than ever are slowly but surely turning their ears toward poetry.

You can find poetry in your everyday life your memory in what people say on the bus in the news or just what's in your heart.

When I really want to be soothed and reminded of why people bother to fiddle with sentences I often read poetry.

I want people to bow as they see me and say he is gifted with poetry he has seen the presence of the creator.

A lot of people think 'I'll give acting or poetry or filmmaking a try. And if it doesn't work out I'll go get a law degree do something else that's more practical.' For me I went the reverse way. I lived the back-up plan.

I think that's what poetry does. It allows people to come together and identify with a common thing that is outside of themselves but which they identify with from the interior.

True poetry is similar to certain pictures whose owner is unknown and which only a few initiated people know.

In fact a lot of them I think are absolute baloney. Those Charles Olsens and people like that. At first I was interested in seeing what they were up to what they were doing why they were doing it. They never moved me in the way that one is moved by true poetry.

More people are reading poetry now than at any time in the history of the human race.

Poetry is at the centre of my life too emotionally speaking and intellectually speaking - it's just that I'm one of those people who enjoy doing other stuff as well.