...confront only the writers who are capable of giving you a sense of something ever more about to be.

How is it that Shakespeare, who had no designs upon us, surpasses any other writer - even Dante, Cervantes, and Tolstoy - in revealing the full burden of our mortality? The least tendentious of dramatists, he nevertheless teaches us the reality of our lives and the necessity of confronting our common limitations as humans. I say "teaches" but the use of this word is misleading since Shakespeare, so far as we can tell, has no desire to instruct us.

You can reread, teach, and write about Shakespeare all your life and never get beyond finding him an enigma.

In old age, time becomes urgent, and this makes me unwilling to tolerate learned ignorance.

We all carry about with us the histories, shorter or longer, of our shadows. Poetry is not, cannot be therapy, but in a time when all spirituality is tainted by political exploitation, or by the depraved cultural politics of the academy and the media, a few poets can remind us of the possibility of a more authentic spirituality.