The trouble with poetry is that it encourages the writing of more poetry.

You, quote, find your voice, unquote, when you are able to invent this one character who resembles you, obviously, and probably is more like you than anyone else on earth, but is not the equivalent to you.

Some difficulty is warranted and other difficulty I think is gratuitous. And I think I can tell the difference. There are certainly very difficult poets that I really enjoy reading.

I was able to read poets that were - allowed me to be humorous without being silly.

I was a pretty happy kid, I had to fake it. I had to get into this miserable character before I wrote poems.

To write poetry is to be very alone, but you always have the company of your influences. But you also have the company of the form itself, which has a kind of consciousness. I mean, the sonnet will simply tell you, that's too many syllables or that's too many lines or that's the wrong place. So, instead of being alone, you're in dialogue with the form.

All I wanted was to be a pea of being inside the green pod of time.