“Lovers lie around in itBroken glass is found in itGrassI like that stuff.”

The man who believes in giraffes would swallow anything.

I want to speak, to sing to total strangers. It’s my way of talking to the world.

I don’t like writing essays or theory.

There have always been poets who performed.

Blake sang his Songs of Innocence and Experience to parties of friends.

I use the language I use to my friends. They wouldn’t believe me if I used some high-flown literary language. I want them to believe me.

I hope my poetry has a relationship with good-time rock’n roll.

Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people.

Stadium rock and commercial rock are the opposite of what poetry needs. An audience of around 200 is ideal for poetry.

I would have walked on the waterBut I wasn’t fully insured.

And the BMA sent a writ my wayWith the very first leper I cured.

You take the human being and you twist it all about So scrub my skin with women Chain my tongue with whisky Stuff my nose with garlic Coat my eyes with butter Fill my ears with silver Stick my legs in plaster Tell me lies about Vietnam.

I use rock and jazz and blues rhythms because I love that music.

I was run over by the truth one day.Ever since the accident I’ve walked this way.

You put your bombers in, you put your conscience out.

Written poetry is different. Best thing is to see it in performance first, then read it. Performance is more provocative.

Early summer days are a jubilee time for birds. In the fields, around the house, in the barn, in the woods, in the swamp – everywhere love and songs and nests and eggs.

There’s a point, around the age of twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities.

For me, perfume, must be adapted to fashion, not the other way around.

Iowa is an amazing place. But I didn’t have much race around me. I was definitely not like everyone there.

I gasp, pressing both palms to my chest. Now the monstrous thing has its claws around my throat, squeezing my airway. I twist and put my head between my knees, breathing until the strangled feeling leaves me.

When you are completely absorbed or caught up in something, you become oblivious to things around you, or to the passage of time. It is this absorption in what you are doing that frees your unconscious and releases your creative imagination.

Everything we say and do and think has its effect on everything around us.

I have seen too many chaotic settings, where children are running around. There’s no sense of purpose.