In the late 60s and early 70s, I did get interested in voices, and in narration and embodying the voice, making the poem sound like a real person talking.

Pound's translation of Chinese poetry was maybe the most important thing I read. Eliot a little bit later.

What actually makes poetry poetry is of course impossible to define. We recognize it when we hear it, when we see it, but we can't define it.

One of the most powerful devices of poetry is the use of distortions. You can go from talking about the way a minute passes to the way a century passes, or a lifetime.

I considered going to film school; I took a course in film and was very interested in filmmaking as well as film writing.

The idea of avant-garde art is a very suspicious thing to me, the idea that poetry is new and it keeps being new the way Chevrolets every year are new.

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