The amount of horror one used to hear about in one village could be quite extreme. But one might not have heard about all the other villages' horrors at the same time.

Well, 'The Wellspring' was written from 1983 to 1986. And it had a section in the beginning that was poems that began from others' experience.

Poets are like steam valves, where the ordinary feelings of ordinary people can escape and be shown.

Poems come from ordinary experiences and objects, I think. Out of memory - a dress I lent my daughter on her way back to college; a newspaper photograph of war; a breast self-exam; the tooth fairy; Calvinist parents who beat up their children; a gesture of love; seeing oneself naked over age 50 in a set of bright hotel bathroom mirrors.

Take your vitamins. Exercise. Just work to love yourself as much as you can - not more than the people around you but not so much less.

Well, one thing I'm really interested in, when I'm writing, is being accurate.

A family is a mystery.