“The Language Poets are writing only about language itself. The Ashbery poets are writing only about poetry itself. That seems to me a kind of dead end.”

“What actually makes poetry poetry is of course impossible to define. We recognize it when we hear it, when we see it, but we can't define it.”

“The fact that something is in a rhymed form or in blank verse will not make it good poetry.”

“I don't think the creative writing industry has helped American poetry.”

“Among the American contemporaries I read with most enjoyment are several North Carolinians. I think the best poetry being written these days is being written by Southerners.”

“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 most powerful devices of poetry is the use of distortions. You can go from talking about the way a minute passes to the way a century passes, or a lifetime.”

“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.”

“Teaching writing over the years intrudes on your own writing in important ways, taking away some of the excitement of poetry.”

“Poetry, almost by definition, calls attention to its language and form.”

“The Language Poets are writing only about language itself. The Ashbery poets are writing only about poetry itself. That seems to me a kind of dead end.”