Distance not only gives nostalgia, but perspective, and maybe objectivity.

If people associate me with a region, that's fine with me.

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.

We have a lot of long narrative poems written in the 20th century, but they're not very well known, and they're not read by very many people.

Young writers find their first audience in little magazines, and experimental writers find their only audience there.

The Black Mountain poet I like most is the early Creeley. Those early poems seem very lyrical and very traditional, with a lot of voice and character.