When You Get An Idea,

I Was Born In Cincinnati, Ohio. My Family Was Not Nationally Known As Being A Literary Family, Though My Mother And My Mother's Side Of The Family In General Were Interested In Literature.

Politics Is There The Way Men And Women Are There, The Way The Atlantic Ocean Is There. Sometimes I've Written About Politics Specifically, I Mean About Politics As It's Understood On Television And In Newspapers.

I Wonder If I Ever Thought Of An Ideal Reader... I Guess When I Was In My 20s And In New York And Maybe Even In My Early 30s, I Would Write For My Wife Janice... Mainly For My Poet Friends And My Wife, Who Was Very Smart About Poetry.

I Don't Think The Nature Of My Poetry Is Satirical Or Even Ironic, I Think It's Essentially Lyrical But Again I Don't Know If It's My Position To Say What My Poetry Is Like.

As I Look Over My Work, I Mean Every Time I Look Over My Early Work, I See, Yes, I Could Do That Then And Then I Could Do That And That... That May Be The Hardest Thing For A Writer, At Least For A Poet, To Tell What The Identity Of His Work Is.