Bugs Bunny Is My Muse.

The Really Authentic Thing About Humor Is That Anyone Can Pretend To Be Serious. Anyone Who's Ever Had A Job - In Fact, We're Pretending To Be Serious Now, More Or Less.

Introduction To Poetry I Ask Them To Take A Poem And Hold It Up To The Light Like A Color Slide Or Press An Ear Against Its Hive. I Say Drop A Mouse Into A Poem And Watch Him Probe His Way Out, Or Walk Inside The Poem's Room And Feel The Walls For A Light Switch. I Want Them To Waterski Across The Surface Of A Poem Waving At The Author's Name On The Shore. But All They Want To Do Is Tie The Poem To A Chair With Rope And Torture A Confession Out Of It. They Begin Beating It With A Hose To Find Out What It Really Means.

Another Trouble With Poetry - And I'm Gonna Stop The List At Two - Is The Presence Of Presumptuousness In Poetry, The Sense You Get In A Poem That The Poet Takes For Granted An Interest On The Reader's Part In The Poet's Autobiographical Life, In The Poet's Memories, Problems, Difficulties And Even Minor Perceptions.

Robert Frost Really Started This Whole Thing Rolling. He Was, I Believe, The First Poet Who Started Going To Colleges. Before That, Poets Didn't Give Public Readings Very Often, Certainly Not - There Was No Circuit Of Schools.

I'm A Line-maker. I Think That's What Makes Poets Different From Prose-writers. That's The Main Way. We Think, Not Just In Sentences The Way Prose Writers Do But Also In Lines. So We're Doing These Two Things At The Same Time.