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

I have taught students from the New York City area so long I have a special affinity and rapport with them. It surprises me sometimes that there are students from anywhere else.

In the best fiction, the language itself can become almost invisible.

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

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

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 fact that something is in a rhymed form or in blank verse will not make it good poetry.