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.

If a poem is not memorable, there's probably something wrong. One of the problems of free verse is that much of the free verse poetry is not memorable.

I considered going to film school; I took a course in film and was very interested in filmmaking as well as film writing.

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

In the late 60s and early 70s, I did get interested in voices, and in narration and embodying the voice, making the poem sound like a real person talking.

Southern poets are still writing narrative poems, poems in forms, dramatic poems.