I have always made my own rules in poetry as in life - though I have tried of late to cooperate more with my family. I do however believe that without order or pattern poetry is useless.

I wonder if I ever thought of an ideal reader... I guess when I was in my 20s and in New York and maybe even in my early 30s I would write for my wife Janice... mainly for my poet friends and my wife who was very smart about poetry.

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.

As to London we must console ourselves with the thought that if life outside is less poetic than it was in the days of old inwardly its poetry is much deeper.

I was always making up rhymes. But I never thought that poetry would become my life.

So I really began as a failed poet - although when I first wanted to be a writer I learned to write prose by reading poetry.

I hardly remember how I started to write poetry. It's hard to imagine what I thought poetry could do.

When I was asked to be Writer in Residence at Edinburgh I thought you can't teach poetry. This is ridiculous.

However I learned something. I thought that if the young person the student has poetry in him or her to offer them help is like offering a propeller to a bird.

I've always had a love for poetry and when I got signed to a record label I thought 'How odd that I'm doing a record before a book of poetry '

A theology should be like poetry which takes us to the end of what words and thoughts can do.

I never thought I'd be doing poetry books. I never really studied poetry. But the first one I did was after my mother died and I realized that people sort of think and talk about her style and fashion but in fact what made her the person she was was really her love of reading and ideas.

I thought to spend my declining years writing poetry and teaching - but that won't pay the Bergdorf's bill. I think I'll move to somewhere life is cheaper.

I came into music because I thought the presentation of poetry wasn't vibrant enough. So I merged improvised poetry with basic rock chords.

When I was younger I felt it was my duty to wake people up. I thought poetry was asleep. I thought rock 'n' roll was asleep.

I always thought that poetry is the verdict that others give to a certain kind of writing. So to call yourself a poet is a kind of dangerous description. It's for others it's for others to use.

Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts and appear almost a remembrance.

Poetry is thoughts that breathe and words that burn.

He who draws noble delights from sentiments of poetry is a true poet though he has never written a line in all his life.

Poetry should... should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts and appear almost a remembrance.

I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything.

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.

To this day I don't ever remember seeing a pet inside Moscow I never saw anyone carrying a dog or leading a dog. Err I finally saw a a pet some years later in Kiev so I thought that life must have been different.

Gypsy was the name my brother gave a pet turtle he had. I always thought it was so peculiar.