James Tate

“I don't think you can define how you acquire your imagination any more than you can define why one person has a sense of humor and another doesn't. But I certainly would lean to the side that says all those solitary hours of daydreaming were a kind of training for poetry.”

“I was just sitting on my bed in a dormitory room, and I started writing. The thing that was magic about it was that once you put down one word, you could cross it out. I figured that out right away. I put down 'mountain,' and then I'd go, 'No - 'valley.' That's better.'”

“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.”

“When you don't sleep, you start to hallucinate, and that's not good.”

“If you laughed earlier in the poem, and I bring you close to tears in the end, that's the best.”

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