The poets needed to learn to pay greater attention to character and to narrative.

The very good thing about MFA programs is their democratizing. They bring a lot of different people to the table.

A certain kind of poetry looks back at experience from an older perspective.

A certain construct of emotions that really define who you are and who you will become and I feel very much that my childhood is very alive inside of me, very close to me, very much part of me. And it's a sometimes painful, sometimes joyous inexhaustible resource for poetry.

I was surprised recently to find a book called "Poetry in Persons" that's coming out about visit to poets to a class that Pearl London gave.

Now, the process of writing poetry is very messy. Not systematic, never quite the same

As a reader you have a task to do, you have something to do. You bring your experience to it. It's not all inherit in the poem.