I think in terms of educating a group of readers, MFA programs are very good. I just think the model of MFA programs in which a young poet goes through the program, publishes a series of books, gets teaching jobs, that's a bit at risk.

Sometimes the title comes to you at the beginning, sometimes it comes at the end. The very best way in my experience is when it comes in the middle.

The way to become a poet is to read poetry and to imitate what you read and to read passionately and widely and in as involved a way as you can.

Language is an impure medium. Speech is public property and words are the soiled products, not of nature, but of society, which circulates and uses them for a thousand different ends.

There's been no poet, no great poet in the history of poetry who hasn't also been a great reader of poetry. This is sometimes distressing to my students when I tell them this.

I think that's a connection that you can only hope for. It's not something that you can make because it needs someone else.

I think one of the things that distinguished my work from the beginning when I was in college was my turning towards poetry from other countries.