You probably have to split yourself in various ways just in order to survive, and to think of yourself as a multitude.

I resist thinking of myself as a teacher. I think of myself as a writer who has pulled a fast one and hoodwinked this institution into giving me a job and health insurance.

I would say that when I write prose I'm a more socially responsible person. I'm much more a citizen of the world. But the instability of the poetry, the emotional jaggedness, is also me.

Technology is transforming everything. Who knows what it's doing, we don't really understand it.

The sun does what it does because the earth tilts.

It's important for all writers to try to figure out what they're doing.

Genres have a history and impose a historical character upon the writer. What is interesting in the poem involves a certain kind of dramatization of the self that you don't have to engage in in the essay. In fact, the essay is a more social medium than the poem.