Bugs Bunny Is My Muse.

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.

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.

Part Of Writing Is Discovering The Rules Of The Game And Then Deciding Whether To Follow The Rules Or To Break Them. The Great Thing About The Game Of Poetry Is That It's Always Your Turn - I Guess That Goes Back To My Being An Only Child. So Once It's Under Way, There Is A Sense Of Flow.

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 Try To Presume That No One Is Interested In Me. And I Think Experience Bears That Out. No One's Interested In The Experiences Of A Stranger - Let's Put It That Way. And Then You Have Difficulty Combined With Presumptuousness, Which Is The Most Dire Trouble With Poetry.