Quotes from Diane Lockward

I am a garden of earthly delights. I am the apple you would fall for a thousand times.

I like the feeling of being about to confront an experience and resolve it as art. —Eudora Welty

Why should a poem please even a majority of readers or listeners? Perhaps someone needs the particular poem that you wrote. You probably do, at any rate.

The poem is smarter than the poet and more rebellious. A strong poem will override its author's initial intentions.

Having something to say is a curse; having an ax to grind is deadly. But everything makes poetry happen.

the process of revising a poem is no arbitrary tinkering, but a continued honing of the self at the deepest level. —Jane Hirshfield