As My Friend George Oppen Once Said

I Started Out In Life As A Poet, I Was Only Writing Poetry All Through My 20s, It Wasn't Until I Was About 30 That I Got Serious About Writing Prose. While I Was Writing Poems, I Would Often Divert Myself By Reading Detective Novels, I Liked Them.

I Guess I Wanted To Leave America For Awhile. It Wasn't That I Wanted To Become An Expatriate, Or Just Never Come Back, I Needed Some Breathing Room. I'd Already Been Translating French Poetry, I'd Been To Paris Once Before And Liked It Very Much, And So I Just Went.

It's Beyond The Grasp Of Anyone's Memory To Recall Conversations In Kind Of [memoir] Detail. So It's Fake. It's All Made Up.

I Don't Have All The Facts. And I Might Misremember. As A Matter Of Fact, After I Finished Winter Journal, I Realized That I'd Gotten Someone's Name Wrong.

The Best Filmmakers, I Think, Have Always Had Very Narrow Frameworks For Their Stories, And Then They Can Go Deeply, Rather Than Skimming The Surface.