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.

We have a lot of long narrative poems written in the 20th century, but they're not very well known, and they're not read by very many people.

Alchemy is the art of far and near, and I think poetry is alchemy in that way. It's delightful to distort size, to see something that's tiny as though it were vast.

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

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.

A lot of my students are Asian-American, and it has been thrilling to watch them break through the stereotypes into something alive and surprising.

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