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

Maybe the example of Southern fiction writing has been so powerful that Southern poets have sort of keyed themselves to that.

One of the most powerful devices is to distort time, to go from human time to atomic time, geologic time. Sometimes you can actually accomplish that, with one unexpected word choice.

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.

I love to create interesting textures with language. You can do it as long as it seems like a discovery.

The idea of avant-garde art is a very suspicious thing to me, the idea that poetry is new and it keeps being new the way Chevrolets every year are new.

Poetry, almost by definition, calls attention to its language and form.