Philip Larkin has a tough honesty and sense of humor that I find irresistible, as a contemporary poet.

I did not have a very literary background. I came to poetry from the sciences and mathematics, and also through an interest in Japanese and Chinese poetry in translation.

If a poem is not memorable, there's probably something wrong. One of the problems of free verse is that much of the free verse poetry is not memorable.

I think that it's more likely that in my 60s and 70s I will be writing poetry rather than fiction.

Pound's translation of Chinese poetry was maybe the most important thing I read. Eliot a little bit later.