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 encourage students to pursue an idea far enough so they can see what the cliches and stereotypes are. Only then do they begin to hit pay dirt.

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

It was less a literary thing than a linguistic, philosophical preoccupation... discovering how far you can go with language to create immediate, elementary experience.

Southern poets are still writing narrative poems, poems in forms, dramatic poems.

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

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