I Think My Poems Are Slightly Underrated

I Was Influenced By The Beats Because I Actually Just Began To Commit Adolescence Around 1955, When "howl" And Rebel Without A Cause And A Lot Of Other New Things Were Popping Up. (again I'm Trying To Give You A Finite Version Of This Career.) And Then I Came Under The Sway Of Wallace Stevens When I Was In College And Graduate School, And Basically Set As A Life Goal The Ambition Of Writing Third-rate Wallace Stevens. I Thought I Would Be Completely Content If I Was Recognized At Some Later Point In My Life As A Third-rate Wallace Stevens.

I Sit In The Dark And Wait For A Little Flame To Appear At The End Of My Pencil.

I Was An Only Child, A Very Late Child, Born To Parents Who Were Both 39 At The Time, Which Was Very Late Back Then. That Kind Of Confirmed My Sense Of Being The Center Of The Universe, Which I Guess Every Child Feels - Children And Poets Both Tend To Feel.

Until Recently, I Thought 'occasional Poetry' Meant That You Wrote Only Occasionally.

There's This Pet Phrase About Writing That Is Bandied Around Particularly In Workshops About "finding Your Own Voice As A Poet", Which I Suppose Means That You Come Out From Under The Direct Influence Of Other Poets And Have Perhaps Found A Way To Combine Those Influences So That It Appears To Be Your Own Voice.