A poem in form still has to have voice, gesture, a sense of discovery, a metaphoric connection, as any poetry does.

You have to really dive deep back into yourself and get rid of so much modern analytical categorization. It's one of the great things poetry does.

It was less a literary thing than a linguistic, philosophical preoccupation... discovering how far you can go with language to create immediate, elementary experience.

I have taught students from the New York City area so long I have a special affinity and rapport with them. It surprises me sometimes that there are students from anywhere else.

Distance not only gives nostalgia, but perspective, and maybe objectivity.

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.

Maybe the example of Southern fiction writing has been so powerful that Southern poets have sort of keyed themselves to that.

I seem to keep returning to my father in poems because his personality was so extreme, so driven. He did everything to excess.

Fiction is about intimacy with characters, events, places.

Some people want to call me an Appalachian writer, even though I know some people use regional labels to belittle.

The young people have MTV and rock and roll. Why would they go to read poetry? Poetry belongs to the Stone Age. It awakens in us perceptions that go back to those times.

If you want to be treated like a mother, act like one.

Meaning isn't something we discover, it is what we bring to life, either by choice or by chance.

Academics were not a challenge when I was fifteen in college. The challenge was figuring out how to fit in socially.

The only thing I can do is tell the truth as I see it and let the chips fall where they may.

Switzerland has no competition. It sits in the middle of Europe, it has the highest technological development, it's legally safe and the political circumstances are never going to change.

Listen carefully. The way(s) we speak about things is revealing.

He who knows he has enough is rich.

Love cannot be had for the asking; it comes only as a gift from the heart of another

It was hard to love my wife and kids because I was all wrapped up in loving only myself. I did what I wanted, when I wanted, without any real concern for them.