I didn't think about whether I was writing poems. I was thinking. And the more I was thinking, the more there was I didn't understand.

I'm not sure what theory is, unless it's the pursuit of fundamental questions.

I was very committed to the process of composing, working at poems, putting things together and taking them apart like some kind of experimental filmmaker.

I tended to emphasize the secular, the casual, the colloquial, the vernacular against the sacred.

When my mother left her second husband, she wrote her autobiography and presented it to him for his approval.

I'm standing up thinking. Anybody who wants to listen is welcome. If not, I'm happy to see them go.

I have spoken to expert audiences occasionally, but then no audience is expert over the whole range of things I want to explore.