Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous - to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd.

I wrote my first poems on pregnancy and childbirth in 1964–’65, based on my first two pregnancies. I was living in Cambridge, United Kingdom, and I found myself thinking, why don’t I have any models, where are the poems about pregnancy and childbirth? I realized finally that it was taboo, and that you’re not aware that your taboos are taboos until they’re broken.

I am lonely, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!

from “Danse Russe

Words are loneliness.

The fact that Saigyo composed a poem that begins, "I shall be unhappy without loneliness," shows that he made loneliness his master.

Poetry and imagination begin life. A child will fall on its knees on the gravel walk at the sight of a pink hawthorn in full flower, when it is by itself, to praise God for it.

Because we are all poets or babies in the middle of the night, struggling with being.

The loneliness is the mother of wisdom.

"Loneliness"

To think of you surcharged with
Loneliness. To hear your voice
Over the record say,
“Loneliness.” The word, the voice,
So full of it, and I, with
You away, so lost in it -
Lost in loneliness and pain.
Black and unendurable,
Thinking of you with every
Corpuscle of my flesh, in
Every instant of night
And day. O, my love, the times
We have forgotten love, and
Sat lonely beside each other.
We have eaten together,
Lonely behind our plates, we
Have hidden behind children,
We have slept together in
A lonely bed. Now my heart
Turns towards you, awake at last,
Penitent, lost in the last
Loneliness. Speak to me. Talk
To me. Break the black silence.
Speak of a tree full of leaves,
Of a flying bird, the new
Moon in the sunset, a poem,
A book, a person – all the
Casual healing speech
Of your resonant, quiet voice.
The word freedom. The word peace.

Novelty is a new kind of loneliness.

Language has created the word ‘loneliness’ to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word ‘solitude’ to express the glory of being alone.

Early on, if I was alone two or three nights in a row, I’d start writing poems about suicide.

Deprivation is the mother of poetry.

Loneliness occurs when you cannot find yourself inside you. The moment you feel the loss of your real self, that’s when loneliness makes a home inside you.