I'm a writer who likes to be influenced.

I got married, other people went off. We had sort of another public-we were our entire readership for many years, and we were very excited by each other.

When you finish a poem, it clicks shut like the top of a jewel box, but prose is endless. I haven't experienced an awful lot of clicking shut!

When you get an idea, go and write. Don't waste it in conversation.

I wonder if I ever thought of an ideal reader... I guess when I was in my 20s and in New York and maybe even in my early 30s, I would write for my wife Janice... mainly for my poet friends and my wife, who was very smart about poetry.

All poetry comes from repetition.

I never thought of myself as a New York poet or as an American poet.