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

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

I think that it's more likely that in my 60s and 70s I will be writing poetry rather than fiction.

I write as a way of keeping myself going. You build your life around writing, and it's what gets you through. So it's partly just curiosity to see what you can do.

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

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

I have taught students from the New York City area so long I have a special affinity and rapport with them. It surprises me sometimes that there are students from anywhere else.