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I always talk to my students about the need to write for the joy of writing. I try to sort of disaggregate the acclaim from the act of writing.

I taught writing classes at the University of Pennsylvania for a number of years and I realized that all you can do is encourage people and give them assignments and hope they will write them.

I couldn't run a tight schedule, and if you're any good at teaching, you get sucked dry because you like your students and you're trying to help them, but you don't have any time left to write yourself.

I teach one semester a year, and this year I'm just teaching one course during that semester, a writing workshop for older students in their late 20s and early 30s, people in our graduate program who are already working on a manuscript and trying to bring it to completion.

Writing is self employment, so you can make your own schedule.

The most important lesson my parents taught me is that writing is a job, one that requires discipline and commitment. Most of the time it's a fun job, a wonderful job, but sometimes it isn't, and those are the days that test you.

Writing is a funny thing. It's not like you're working on a schedule. It comes in fits and starts.

Someone who wants to write should make an effort to write a little something every day. Writing in this sense is the same as athletes who practice a sport every day to keep their skills honed.

Teaching writing over the years intrudes on your own writing in important ways, taking away some of the excitement of poetry.