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

One of the biggest changes that ever occurred in my life was going from the isolation of working part-time as a house painter in Henderson County, to Cornell, where everybody was a literary person.

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

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

If people associate me with a region, that's fine with me.

Teaching writing over the years intrudes on your own writing in important ways, taking away some of the excitement of poetry.

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.