If People Associate Me With A Region,

I Tell Students They Will Know They Are Getting Somewhere When A Scene Is So Painful They Can Just Barely Bring Themselves To Write About It. A Writer Has To Draw Blood.

I Encourage Students To Pursue An Idea Far Enough So They Can See What The Cliches And Stereotypes Are. Only Then Do They Begin To Hit Pay Dirt.

Part Of What We Love About Poetry Is The Fact That It Seems Ancient, That It Has An Authority Of Ancient Language And Ancient Form, And That It's Timeless, That It Reaches Back.

One Of The Biggest Changes That Ever Occurred In My Life Was Going From The Isolation Of Working Part-time As A House Painter In Henderson County, To Cornell, Where Everybody Was A Literary Person.

The Fact That Something Is In A Rhymed Form Or In Blank Verse Will Not Make It Good Poetry.