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interviewer

In your poems, whom have you stolen from?

august kleinzahler

Everybody.  I pick up bits everywhere, not just from poets, painters, whatnot.  I'm a magpie.  I pick up things on the street, from radio, overheard conversations, cloud formations, the Fairway market, the Chinese produce store -- I mean, that's what I do, and I do it from when I wake up in the morning till my darlingdear plumps my pillow for me at night.

interviewer

So at your age, you're not beyond influence?

kleinzahler

Beyond influence?  Good grief.  I'd have to be dead.

[august kleinzahler: the art of poetry #93; paris review 182]