I've had trouble with criticism, I guess. It's hard to know what role criticism plays in either encouraging poets or in getting other people to read them.

I certainly have the feeling that I'm the same person even though I've changed a great deal.

You can't be too influenced by a great poet. You simply have to live through it.

Certainly, it seems true enough that there's a good deal of irony in the world... I mean, if you live in a world full of politicians and advertising, there's obviously a lot of deception.

Maybe there are three or four really good poets in a generation.

All poetry comes from repetition.

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.