The Black Mountain poet I like most is the early Creeley. Those early poems seem very lyrical and very traditional, with a lot of voice and character.

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

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.

I encourage students to pursue an idea far enough so they can see what the cliches and stereotypes are. Only then do they begin to hit pay dirt.

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

I don't think American poetry has gotten any better in the past 35 years. Oddly enough, creative writing programs seem to have been good for fiction, and I would not have predicted that.

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