I wonder what it means about American literary culture and its transmission when I consider the number of American poets who earn their living teaching creative writing in universities. I've ended up doing that myself.

My mother was told she couldn't go to medical school because she was a woman and a Jew. So she became a teacher in the New York City public school system.

You happened to me. You were as deep down as I’ve ever been. You were inside me like my pulse.

I think there is something about coming to a city to work that puts you in touch with it in a different way.

When you translate poetry in particular, you're obliged to look at how the writer with whom you're working puts together words, sentences, phrases, the triple tension between the line of verse, the syntax and the sentence.

I have experienced healing through other writers' poetry, but there's no way I can sit down to write in the hope a poem will have healing potential. If I do, I'll write a bad poem.

Poetry dovetails contradictions.