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

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.

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

I think that it's more likely that in my 60s and 70s I will be writing poetry rather than fiction.

The best books of our times have included the three mature volumes of Philip Larkin. They're very short books of poems, and very carefully arranged.

A poem in form still has to have voice, gesture, a sense of discovery, a metaphoric connection, as any poetry does.

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.