You have to really dive deep back into yourself and get rid of so much modern analytical categorization. It's one of the great things poetry does.

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

Poetry, almost by definition, calls attention to its language and form.

I encourage students to pursue an idea far enough so they can see what the cliches and stereotypes are. Only then do they begin to hit pay dirt.

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.

Pound's translation of Chinese poetry was maybe the most important thing I read. Eliot a little bit later.

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