In the past an artist produced things that were necessary socially; they were instruments, albeit of a special kind, that helped the dead reach eternity, spells to be cast, prayers to be liturgically fleshed. . . . The aesthetic component of those instruments enhanced their function but was never central, never an independent, nonutilitarian thing.

I see a poem as a multi-coloured strip behind peeling plaster, in separate, shining fragments.

We came here as we truly are, and when the other side shows us that truth — the part of it we pass over in silence — we’re unable to come to terms with it!