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

Some people want to call me an Appalachian writer, even though I know some people use regional labels to belittle.

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.

Some people swear by writing courses, but whether it really helps American poetry, I have doubts.

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.

In the best fiction, the language itself can become almost invisible.

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