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

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

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

I did not have a very literary background. I came to poetry from the sciences and mathematics, and also through an interest in Japanese and Chinese poetry in translation.

Our most famous writers are Faulkner and Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor. It would make sense that the poetry would reflect some of those same values, some of the same techniques.

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.

Pound's translation of Chinese poetry was maybe the most important thing I read. Eliot a little bit later.