I am a relatively rational being and I like to create order in poems. I like meter, I like rhyme, but ultimately I don't know where the poems come from, and I feel, at least in the beginning, that I'm taking dictation from my own dream that I don't remember.

And I said to myself, here's the problem with the world: The Italians are too Italian, and nobody else is Italian enough.

All writers know in advance that they are not going be able to reproduce in its wonderful fullness the thing that's in their heads; we're going to get some corner of it. We're going to do the best we can, but we already know it's beyond us.

Writing is a bit like walking into a big bookstore. It's the bookstore of your brain, and you know you're never going to read all those books. It makes you happy you're in the bookstore, and you're nervous because you know you're never going to read all those books. So the nervousness is also happy. Once I get going writing poetry is one of the happiest things I do, but it is also fraught with all of these anxieties.

A number of people have written poems about Trump already, and I salute them. He is so beyond anything we could have imagined and yet, in another way, he has to be seen as a mirror of America. Our country wouldn't have elected him if he didn't reflect something in our country. In my view, it's a negative thing that's being reflected.

I am a relatively rational being and I like to create order in poems. I like meter, I like rhyme, but ultimately I don't know where the poems come from, and I feel, at least in the beginning, that I'm taking dictation from my own dream that I don't remember.

Political poetry is the hardest thing to write because you cannot preach to the converted, and if you're only seeking to convert, then write an editorial. I hope I can write about Trump; he's too major a force not to be written about.