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.

Young writers only take off when they find their subjects. Since almost everyone has a family and stories about family, that is often a place to start.

One of the most powerful devices is to distort time, to go from human time to atomic time, geologic time. Sometimes you can actually accomplish that, with one unexpected word choice.

Alchemy is the art of far and near, and I think poetry is alchemy in that way. It's delightful to distort size, to see something that's tiny as though it were vast.

I learned to impersonate the kind of person that talks about poetry. It comes from teaching, I think.

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.

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.