My earliest poems were a way of talking to somebody. I suppose to myself.
You have begun to separate the dark from the dark.
The irony is, going to work every day became the subject of probably my best poetry.
Now I think poetry will save nothing from oblivion, but I keep writing about the ordinary because for me it's the home of the extraordinary, the only home.
My father died when I was five, but I grew up in a strong family.
I still believe in this country, that it can fulfill the destiny Blake and Whitman envisioned. I still believe in American poetry.