Well, I think the first piece of music I ever heard that I really loved was 'Salome's Dances' by Richard Strauss. I played that 12-inch, 78 record, and I stood up on an ottoman to play it on a big Victrola and I'd just keep playing it and playing it. ↗
My parents moved to American Samoa when I was three or four years old. My dad was principal of a high school there. It was idyllic for a kid. I had a whole island for a backyard. I lived there until I was eight years old and we moved to Santa Barbara. ↗
I swear by that old expression, 'One monkey don't stop no show!' The reality is, we still have some good men out there, and we should hail those men as the kings they are. ↗
I did know Ted Hughes and I partly wrote the book to explain to myself and others the complexities of a marriage that was for six years wonderfully productive of poetry and then ended in tragedy. ↗
I work very hard on all my poems, but most of the work consists of trying not to sound as if I had worked. I try to make them sound as natural as possible, but within a quite strict form, which to my ears has a lot to do with musical rhythm and sound. ↗
