Every time somebody writes a theory about where literature's going, that person is not only contributing thought but nudging things to happen in one way or the other. Just as in painting, there's much more interest in the American scene painters and the early American... like the Ashcan school of painters. Who would have thought, 50 years ago, that Norman Rockwell would again be considered a serious painter? And yet, there are a lot of people who are saying Rockwell was a very accomplished technician. These things are constantly moving.

There's nothing wrong with delighting in what you do. In fact, most of the fun you'll have as a poet will come about during the process of writing.

Wallace Stevens had more time to write as an insurance agent. He was a bond lawyer and I know that insurance company lawyers don't have to do nearly as much as we had to do. We were out more in the production area. I'm not condemning Stevens for having had a better job than I did, but that's one of the many places where I differ from him.

Turtle has just one plan at a time, and every cell buys into it.

Sometimes you sense how faithfully your life is delivered, even though you can't read the address.

I like the poem on the page and not at the podium. I like to address the poem in peace and quiet, not on the edge of a folding chair with a full bladder. I can't stand hearing a poem that I can't see. I did a reading at Wayne State, and it ended with the comedy such occasions deserve. I'd seated myself on a piano bench, and discovered upon attempting to arise at the end that the varnish had softened and I was stuck fast. The hinge was to the front, under my knees, so that as I tried to get up, I merely opened the lid.

Somebody comes to my house and admires what I've done, sometimes I just give it to them. Because I don't want to get it all tied up in all that professional stuff because I have to do that as a writer. I don't need that. I need something like painting, where I can just play.