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.

It was less a literary thing than a linguistic, philosophical preoccupation... discovering how far you can go with language to create immediate, elementary experience.

I have taught students from the New York City area so long I have a special affinity and rapport with them. It surprises me sometimes that there are students from anywhere else.

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

Some people want to call me an Appalachian writer, even though I know some people use regional labels to belittle.

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.

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