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

Philip Larkin has a tough honesty and sense of humor that I find irresistible, as a contemporary poet.

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.

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.

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

In the later books I am much more at home in the use of language to describe things. I had never thought of that until a critic pointed that out.

With prose you can incorporate more details, develop scenes, sustain the tension in a special way. Prose has its own speed.