The marketplace does only one thing - it puts a price on everything. The role of culture, however, must go beyond economics. It is not focused on the price of things, but on their value. And, above all, culture should tell us what is beyond price, including what does not belong in the marketplace. A culture should also provide some cogent view of the good life beyond mass accumulation. In this respect, our culture is failing us.

Once an author finishes a poem, he becomes merely another reader. I may remember what I intended to put into a text, but what matters is what a reader actually…

The purpose of arts education is not to produce more artists, though that is a byproduct. The real purpose of arts education is to create complete human beings…

I did not want my son remembered by uncontrolled howls of pain. My wife and I suffered more than I can express, but to make poems merely out of the agony would…

It seems to be a law of American life that whatever enriches us anywhere except in the wallet inevitably becomes uneconomic.

The climate of our culture is changing. Under these new rains, new suns, small things grow great, and what was great grows small; whole species disappear and a…

Equal wealth and equal opportunities of culture...have simply made us all members of one class.