James Tate quotes:

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.

I like to start with the ordinary, and then nudge it, and then think, 'What happens next, what happens next?'

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.

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.

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.

Something should always change in a poem. The persona should learn something.

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.

The challenge is always to find the ultimate in the ordinary horseshit.