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

Part of what we love about poetry is the fact that it seems ancient, that it has an authority of ancient language and ancient form, and that it's timeless, that it reaches back.

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

One of the biggest changes that ever occurred in my life was going from the isolation of working part-time as a house painter in Henderson County, to Cornell, where everybody was a literary person.

The fact that something is in a rhymed form or in blank verse will not make it good poetry.

I love to create interesting textures with language. You can do it as long as it seems like a discovery.

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.