Even after the mothering dropped because my son grew up, the writing - the muse - was always the third wheel, the lowest on the priority list.

I want, I want, I want! We never grow out of it somehow. Unless we become Buddhists, maybe.

There are a couple of poems I've written with masculine muses, very often the muse to me is a female.

In actual fact, I have been an academic - a college and university teacher and scholar - for much of the last 45 years, and only rarely a writer.

I look at my young students, and I no longer have the sense that, oh, I'm the authority and they have to meet a certain standard. It's like, oh, look at these young ones. They've got such a hard road in front of them. I don't envy them having life ahead of them.

Wouldn't that be wonderful if I could do that? And that way, I could walk with the muse, rather than walk without her. The novel would write itself.

I don't really get into the power sufficiently, and that's also a problem for me.