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

I tell students they will know they are getting somewhere when a scene is so painful they can just barely bring themselves to write about it. A writer has to draw blood.

Teaching writing over the years intrudes on your own writing in important ways, taking away some of the excitement of poetry.

I seem to keep returning to my father in poems because his personality was so extreme, so driven. He did everything to excess.

The decision to write in prose instead of poetry is made more by the readers than by writers. Almost no one is interested in reading narrative in verse.

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.

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.