With an age difference comes a great gap in cultural references, and so on. It's not all about race and gender. It interests me that, as you get older, your younger self becomes a stranger to you. A split occurs within yourself. But maybe we're all always strangers to ourselves.
Nick LairdWhen you're rereading or editing your book and you start to expect that this work is going to be reviewed, and you can sort of tell which line is going to show up in reviews.
Nick LairdIn fact, lots of good poetry doesn't work , so I don't mind a bit of mystification or difficulty.
Nick LairdNew York is great for writers insofar as you can pay someone to bring you food, to take your washing out and bring it back clean. It enables you. Writers always feel guilty when they're doing anything but writing, and New York allows you to really write all the time if you want to - though my kids put a limit on it.
Nick LairdI'm always reading books, I'm always having encounters, I'm always taking trips. Whatever it is you come up with about how you got started, that's equally true for all the books you didn't start.
Nick LairdMost of the poems I write go through forty versions and then stay in a file on my computer. I'm not very good at sending stuff out or feeling that something is ready to send out and I never have been. Part of the problem is that as soon as a poem is finished, it stops being all that interesting to me.
Nick Laird