My old teacher's definition of poetry is an attempt to understand.

There have been two popular subjects for poetry in the last few decades: the Vietnam War and AIDS, about both of which almost all of us have felt deeply.

We learned in the university to consider Wordsworth and Keats as Romantics. They were only a generation apart, but Wordsworth didn't even read Keats's book when he gave him a copy.

Many of my poems are not sexual.

My old teacher's definition of poetry is an attempt to understand.

I was much influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre.

I work best in rhyme and meter. I was most confident of myself in that way.