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

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

Neither of my parents has been very sensitive about my writing.

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.

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.

The decision to write in prose instead of poetry is made more by the readers than by writers. Almost no one is interested in reading narrative in verse.

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