One of the appeals of William Carlos Williams to me is that he was many different kinds of poet. He tried out many different forms in his own way of, more or less, formlessness. He was also a poet who could be - he was a love poet, he was a poet of the natural order and he was also a political poet.

One of the appeals of William Carlos Williams to me is that he was many different kinds of poet. He tried out many different forms in his own way of, more or less, formlessness. He was also a poet who could be - he was a love poet, he was a poet of the natural order and he was also a political poet.

You can't be a poet certainly of my generation and not have deep in your animal brain the comment of William Carlos Williams, no ideas except in things.

Every cliche is true, right? That's why they're cliches.

A lot of the stuff that I see, because it's part of the work that I do, is look at pictures and photographs and sculpture and all the rest of that. I also spend a lot of time looking at the people on my street, and all of it simply exists in sort of this tremendous forceful wash of reality out of which comes, what I hope, are these shapely recognitions of reality, which are my poems.

When you're writing - when I'm writing anyway - I'm writing out of different kinds of preoccupations and obsessions, different forms of drivenness, and so you're really hostage those while writing. I am, anyway. And it's only when you finally take the finished thing out of the furnace that you see what it was that went into the making of the thing.

When I think about what really matters, it's not looking at art that has made the most difference or has been most shaping of the poetry; it's simply living as completely in the world as a politically alert creature, as someone who is both stuck in and also trying to view the historical moment. Folded into all of that, of course, whatever you see in your life.