I knew about holiness, never having missed a Sunday-school class since I started at four years. But if Jews were also religious, how could our neighbor with the grease-grimy shirt use the word 'damn' about them?

I have published in 'The New Yorker,' 'Holiday,' 'Life,' 'Mademoiselle,' 'American Heritage,' 'Horizon,' 'The Ladies Home Journal,' 'The Kenyon Review,' 'The Sewanee Review,' 'Poetry,' 'Botteghe Oscure,' the 'Atlantic Monthly,' 'Harper's.'

When your first marriage goes into tragedy, you become very battle-scarred... I even thought of suicide. Luckily, I had known some happy marriages.

I can still remember the feel in my hand of that most wonderful American coin ever minted, a nickel with a buffalo on one side and the head of an Indian on the other. That nickel was a daily proof of our country's past. Bring it back!

Writing is like this -- you dredge for the poem's meaning the way police dredge for a body. They think it is down there under the black water, they work the grappling hooks back and forth.

Human life is too difficult for people.

All poetry is an ordered voice, one which tries to tell you about a vision in the un-visionary language of farm, city, and love.