If People Associate Me With A Region,

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.

A Poem In Form Still Has To Have Voice, Gesture, A Sense Of Discovery, A Metaphoric Connection, As Any Poetry Does.

A Lot Of My Students Are Asian-american, And It Has Been Thrilling To Watch Them Break Through The Stereotypes Into Something Alive And Surprising.

Some People Swear By Writing Courses, But Whether It Really Helps American Poetry, I Have Doubts.

The Idea Of Avant-garde Art Is A Very Suspicious Thing To Me, The Idea That Poetry Is New And It Keeps Being New The Way Chevrolets Every Year Are New.