The great watershed of modern poetry is French, more than English.

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

Some people want to call me an Appalachian writer, even though I know some people use regional labels to belittle.

The best books of our times have included the three mature volumes of Philip Larkin. They're very short books of poems, and very carefully arranged.

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.

It was less a literary thing than a linguistic, philosophical preoccupation... discovering how far you can go with language to create immediate, elementary experience.

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