"Imagination in poetry, as distinguished from mere fancy is the transfiguring of the real or actual to the ideal."

"I don’t think it’s a responsibility, but I certainly think it’s something poetry can do, and I think that poetry has a unique ability to do it because of its self-referential nature and its self-consc…"

"It is true that the poet does not directly address his neighbors; but he does address a great congress of persons who dwell at the back of his mind, a congress of all those who have taught him and who…"

"I stared down at the cemetery and the sight felt rich, rewarding, physically so, in the actual eyes. The very eyeball itself felt good. I became the most recent person on earth to see that everyone in…"

"The headlands and the hedges were so fresh and wonderful, so gay with the dawn of the world. Tarry never tired looking at these ordinary things as he tired of the Mass and of religion. In a dim way he…"