If there is any substitute for love, it is memory

I was fortunate enough to write about things I really love, and love can be very analytic.

The mechanics of love imply some sort of bridge between the sensual and the spiritual, sometimes to the point of deification; the notion of an afterlife is implicit not only in our couplings, but also in our separations.

Vanity plays lurid tricks with our memory

It is not just shameful for a contemporary American poet to use rhymes, it is unthinkable. It seems banal to him; he fears banality worse than anything, and therefore, he uses free verse - though free verse is no guarantee against banality.

A writer is seldom satisfied with the condition he finds himself in. We're all given to fretting a lot.