Philip Levine

"There'll always be working people in my poems because I grew up with them, and I am a poet of memory."

"I realized poetry's the thing that I can do 'cause I can stick at it and work with tremendous intensity."

"The irony is, going to work every day became the subject of probably my best poetry."

"Meet some people who care about poetry the way you do. You'll have that readership. Keep going until you know you're doing work that's worthy. And then see what happens. That's my advice."

"Now I think poetry will save nothing from oblivion, but I keep writing about the ordinary because for me it's the home of the extraordinary, the only home."

"My mother carried on and supported us her ambition had been to write poetry and songs."