The one thing about my life that's different from others is that I wake up for no one, and for some reason, that's just good for your creativity.

Why was I born with such contemporaries?

A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.

Homesickness is universal. But Neapolitan homesickness goes back further than the accidents of domicile. It is nostalgia for love and loss themselves, a soul-sickness caused by the very idea of leaving.

I would rise, monk-like, at 6 A.M., speak to no one, make tea, and go immediately to my desk from which I didn't move until frills appeared around the edges of my eyes or I heard the sound of a wine bottle being uncorked. It would give the wrong impression to describe these as Writing Days.