Toward his critics, the artist harbors a defensive ace: knowledge that the future will erase the present.
Louise Gluck
What I responded to, on the page, was the way a poem could liberate, by means of a word's setting, through subtleties of timing, of pacing, that word's full and surprising range of meaning. It seemed to me that simple language best suited this enterprise.
We have a disturbing cultural appetite for novelty, and it seems to me wrong each new laureate should dislodge the ideas of his or her predecessor, especially when they're still unfolding.
I preferred the simplest vocabulary.
It seems to me in the past it's been a good thing, as a writer, to have experiences I hadn't expected.
I don't live with earplugs. I don't like the spotlight - but I like overhearing conversations.
I have no concern with widening audience.
