The problem is we think we exist.

A responsibility of literature is to make people awake, present, alive. If the writer wanders, then the reader, too, will wander.

Indefinite plans get dubious results.

I think talent is like a water table under the earth—you tap it with your effort and it comes through you.

Our bodies are garbage heaps: we collect experience, and from the decomposition of the thrown-out eggshells, spinach leaves, coffee grinds, and old steak bones out of our minds come nitrogen, heat, and very fertile soil. Out of this fertile soil bloom our poems and stories. But this does not come all at once. It takes time. Continue to turn over and over the organic details of your life until some of them fall through the garbage of discursive thoughts to the solid ground of black soil.

keep your hand moving

Poetry has never been a favorite American pastime.