One cannot have "success" in poetry. If I wanted to be successful, I'd have become a lawyer.

My day does not truly begin until I've acquired and consumed a 32-ounce Big Gulp of diet coke from 7-Eleven. It's the Big Gulp that's important, not 7-Eleven, where I find the employees rather disagreeable.

To think of writing poetry as a "career" is not only ridiculous, it's dangerous. To the imagination. To the way one thinks of art. The reason poetry as a genre is so special is because it cannot be made a commodity.

The cool thing about having a book is that it takes on its own life. Once it's in the world, you can't follow it. You'd have to have a pretty fantastic surveillance system to track its migration.

I consider poetry my vocation, not my "career." My career is as a university professor; that's what pays the bills.

I encourage my students to be honest in their assessment of both the published work we read and the work of their classmates. I think there's always the occasion for discussing elements of craft, whether the student's poem is terrible or quite wonderful.

When asked what I'd be if I weren't a writer, I'm tempted to respond with one of father's favorite phrases, one I despised while growing up: "I hate 'what-ifs.'"