“First, I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it. We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.”

“First, I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it. We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.”

“And yet this self, containsTides, continents and stars―a myriad selves,Is small and solitary as one grass-bladePassed over by the windAmongst a myriad grasses on the prairie.”

“A way of using words to say things which could not possibly be said in any other way, things which in a sense do not exist till they are born … in poetry.”

“poetry is not—except in a very limited sense—a form of self-expression. Who on earth supposes that the pearl expresses the oyster?”

“In June we picked the clover,And sea-shells in July:There was no silence at the door,No word from the sky.A hand came out of AugustAnd flicked his life away:We had not time to bargain, mope,Moralize, or pray.”

“The river this November afternoonRests in an equipoise of sun and cloud:A glooming light, a gleaming darkness shroudIts passage. All seems tranquil, all in tune.”

“See this abdicated beast, once kingOf them all, nibble his claws:Not anger enough left—no, nor despair—To break his teeth on the bars.”

“I don't write to be understood”