It's absolutely crucial to maintain my life as a poet.

The commitment to working at poetry is important because a poet is a maker, and a poem is a made thing. We have to honor our feelings by working to transform them into something meaningful and lasting.

The idea that a poem was a made thing stayed with me, and I decided then that I wanted to be an artist, not just a diarist. So I put myself through a kind of apprenticeship in writing poetry, and I understood even then that my practice as a poet was deeply related to my reading.

And every year there is a brief, startling moment _x000D_ When we pause in the middle of a long walk home and _x000D_ Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless _x000D_ Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air: _x000D_ It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies; _x000D_ It is the changing light of fall falling on us.

When poetry separates from song, then the words have to carry all the rhythm themselves; they have to do all the work. They can't rely on the singing voice.

The idea of a poem as a message in a bottle means that it's sent out towards some future reader, and the reader who opens that bottle becomes the addressee of the literary text.