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

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.

One of the most powerful devices is to distort time, to go from human time to atomic time, geologic time. Sometimes you can actually accomplish that, with one unexpected word choice.

It's hell writing and it's hell not writing. The only tolerable state is having just written.

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

This project in Australia is just one example of what could go terribly wrong for the world's forests if the governments of Japan, Australia and the United States get their way next week at the climate summit in the Hague. Instead of reducing the pollution that causes global warming, these countries are looking for quick fixes that have high risks for forests.