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.

Some people swear by writing courses, but whether it really helps American poetry, I have doubts.

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

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.

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

Our most famous writers are Faulkner and Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor. It would make sense that the poetry would reflect some of those same values, some of the same techniques.

Young writers find their first audience in little magazines, and experimental writers find their only audience there.