A. R. Ammons

That's a wonderful change that's taken place, and so most poetry today is published, if not directly by the person, certainly by the enterprise of the poet himself, working with his friends.

Anything looked at closely becomes wonderful.

Everything is discursive opinion instead of direct experience.

Under the previous regime of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, I was detained. So was my wife, Serkalem Fasil. She gave birth to our son in prison in 2005.

I don't think I was a good model. I think I was born to emote and act. I would walk down the ramp and smile and they used to say, 'Give us a blank look.' It was really difficult not to smile.

We define ourselves as intelligent. That's odd, because we're doing the definition - We're creating our own definition and saying, 'We are intelligent!'