James Tate
I don't think you can define how you acquire your imagination any more than you can define why one person has a sense of humor and another doesn't. But I certainly would lean to the side that says all those solitary hours of daydreaming were a kind of training for poetry.Collection: Poetry
I was just sitting on my bed in a dormitory room, and I started writing. The thing that was magic about it was that once you put down one word, you could cross it out. I figured that out right away. I put down 'mountain,' and then I'd go, 'No - 'valley.' That's better.'
I can't know entirely what's at stake beforehand; you find out as you go. I love to take a poem, for instance, that starts with something seemingly frivolous or inconsequential and then grows in gravity until by the end it's something very serious.
I like to start with the ordinary, and then nudge it, and then think, 'What happens next, what happens next?'
When you don't sleep, you start to hallucinate, and that's not good.
I love my funny poems, but I'd rather break your heart. And if I can do both in the same poem, that's the best.
If you laughed earlier in the poem, and I bring you close to tears in the end, that's the best.
Poetry is everywhere; it just needs editing.Collection: Editing
The challenge is always to find the ultimate in the ordinary horseshit.Collection: Challenges
Something should always change in a poem. The persona should learn something.Collection: Should
William Waltz will take me through 'the buzz and clamor in a forest of hearts.' Adventures in the Lost Interiors of America is an adventure, I will go on this adventure with Waltz as a skillful, faithful, compass-true guide. I love this book.Collection: Book
In You Are Not Dead Wendy Xu breaks all the old rules that have never done us any favors anyway. She writes beautifully, noticing who we are, and letting us see ourselves with a little more humanity, a little more humor, a little more humility. I'm happy to have read this book.Collection: Book