"I write because to write a new sentence, let alone a new poem, is to cross the threshold into both a larger existence and a profound mystery. A thought was not there, then it is. An image, a story, an idea about what it is to be human, did not exist, then it does. With every new poem, an emotion new to the heart, to the world, speaks itself into being."

You may also like:

• 

  Galway Kinnell
  Poet

• 

  Kay Ryan
  Poet

• 

  Mary Oliver
  Poet

• 

  Naomi Shihab Nye
  Poet

• 

  Paul Celan
  Poet

• 

  Robert Bly
  Poet

• 

  Stuart Dybek
  Writer

• 

  W. S. Merwin
  Poet

• 

  Wislawa Szymborska
  Poet