We're trying to make something that lasts in language and there's no question that many fiction writers began as poets and it's hard for me to think of any good fiction writers who don't also read poetry.

There's always some place to go. You don't need workshops, you don't need friends necessarily, you can be befriended by literature itself.

Now, that can be a traditional form or it can be something you're inventing. It can be the development of a metaphor, the working through of a metaphor.

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

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.

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 think the culture can absorb so many people writing poetry and trying to earn their living in poetry.