I Don't Think Poetry Is Something That

I Write As A Way Of Keeping Myself Going. You Build Your Life Around Writing, And It's What Gets You Through. So It's Partly Just Curiosity To See What You Can Do.

Our Most Famous Writers Are Faulkner And Eudora Welty And Flannery O'connor. It Would Make Sense That The Poetry Would Reflect Some Of Those Same Values, Some Of The Same Techniques.

I Don't Think American Poetry Has Gotten Any Better In The Past 35 Years. Oddly Enough, Creative Writing Programs Seem To Have Been Good For Fiction, And I Would Not Have Predicted That.

In The Best Fiction, The Language Itself Can Become Almost Invisible.

Philip Larkin Has A Tough Honesty And Sense Of Humor That I Find Irresistible, As A Contemporary Poet.