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.

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.

The young people have MTV and rock and roll. Why would they go to read poetry? Poetry belongs to the Stone Age. It awakens in us perceptions that go back to those times.

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

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

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

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.