"I learn a lot about my poems when I read them by the way people respond to them." — Mary Oliver

At the time I was growing up, literature was involved with the so-called confessional poets. And I was not interested in that. I did not think that specific and personal perspective functioned well for the reader at all.

I would rather write poems than prose, any day, any place. Yet each has its own force.

I'd rather write about polar bears than people.

Wasn't it Emerson who said, 'My life is for itself and not for a spectacle'? I have a happy, full, good life because I hold it private.