One of the most powerful devices of poetry is the use of distortions. You can go from talking about the way a minute passes to the way a century passes, or a lifetime.

I write as a way of keeping myself going. You build your life around writing, and it's what gets you through. So it's partly just curiosity to see what you can do.

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

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

Among the American contemporaries I read with most enjoyment are several North Carolinians. I think the best poetry being written these days is being written by Southerners.

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.

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