Certainly the last thing I want is to be "difficult."

By the late 70s conservatism was becoming more corporate on the one hand, more theocratic on the other. In reaction to the 60s, conservatism was more about order than freedom, more about conformity than singularity.

I think most novelists I know, certainly including me, feel the novels choose them rather than vice-versa.

While I do believe I become a technically better writer over time, in others ways writing gets harder because inspiration is finite.

These days in particular it seems not only unavoidable but even irresponsible to not acknowledge politics in some way.

One of the reasons I'm not so keen on people calling me an "experimental" writer is that it suggests the work is about the experiment, when it's always the opposite - any "experimentation" is dictated by the material.

I began composing the next poem, the one that was to be written next. Not the last poem of those I had read, but the poem written in the head of someone who may never have existed but who had certainly written another poem nonetheless, and just never had the chance to commit it to ink and the page.