Philip Larkin has a tough honesty and sense of humor that I find irresistible, as a contemporary poet.

I write as a way of keeping myself going. You build your life around writing, and it's what gets you through. So it's partly just curiosity to see what you can do.

I think that it's more likely that in my 60s and 70s I will be writing poetry rather than fiction.

I considered going to film school; I took a course in film and was very interested in filmmaking as well as film writing.

A poem in form still has to have voice, gesture, a sense of discovery, a metaphoric connection, as any poetry does.

Neither of my parents has been very sensitive about my writing.

The decision to write in prose instead of poetry is made more by the readers than by writers. Almost no one is interested in reading narrative in verse.