I don't think the creative writing industry has helped American poetry.

The fact that something is in a rhymed form or in blank verse will not make it good poetry.

With prose you can incorporate more details, develop scenes, sustain the tension in a special way. Prose has its own speed.

What actually makes poetry poetry is of course impossible to define. We recognize it when we hear it, when we see it, but we can't define it.

The young people have MTV and rock and roll. Why would they go to read poetry? Poetry belongs to the Stone Age. It awakens in us perceptions that go back to those times.

When you have an idea for a story, you want those characters to reach as many people as you can. I think you normally think of prose as a way of doing that. It fits our time, the culture.

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.