The best books of our times have included the three mature volumes of Philip Larkin. They're very short books of poems, and very carefully arranged.

The idea of avant-garde art is a very suspicious thing to me, the idea that poetry is new and it keeps being new the way Chevrolets every year are new.

Among the American contemporaries I read with most enjoyment are several North Carolinians. I think the best poetry being written these days is being written by Southerners.

I love to create interesting textures with language. You can do it as long as it seems like a discovery.

I don't think poetry is something that can be taught. We can encourage young writers, but what you can't teach them is the very essence of poetry.

A lot of my students are Asian-American, and it has been thrilling to watch them break through the stereotypes into something alive and surprising.

Poetry, almost by definition, calls attention to its language and form.