How long have you been writing professionally?

I think I had my first poem published in a national magazine shortly after I graduated from college, and then I just continued to publish in magazines. I had my first book was published when I was thirty, and I've been publishing books ever since. ... If by a professional, you mean somebody who actually makes money and has a reputation, I guess I've been in that category maybe for twenty-five years, or something.

My first book was published in 1988, so '98, 2008—twenty-five, twenty-six years.

I'm fifty-seven, and I started publishing, you know, small poems in school magazines back when I was in college, when I was, 18, 19, 20. So if you start it there, then that amount of years. If you start it when I had my first chapbook, then it would have been after I finished college.

I was trying to write professionally—I've been writing since I was a child. And I had a very high opinion of my early work, so I was sending books out to publishers in my early teens.

I published my first poem 53 years ago.

I'd say since roughly '98 or '99. That's when I was just finishing grad school and procrastinating on finishing my dissertation. So, I kind of went back to my long-time interest in contemporary poetry.

The first poem I published was in 1970. So, 44 years.

I think it must have been early '90s that the first book was published, I think? It might have been.

I had been a pre-med major all through college but when I got to graduate school I was totally happy doing my writing thing and I never looked back. So I started my so-called practice there where I worked every day on my writing. That was 1975.

Really, I guess I would say since 1972, which is when I was in fact an undergraduate student. I got discharged from the army in 1971, got drafted, went back to college, and within a matter of a few months was waylaid by poetry.