Clark Coolidge, another on my top twenty list, which only includes 19 in order to leave room for error. An incredibly powerful sense of sound and rhythm, obviously. I love the way he watches himself write, examining the process of writing as he goes along. Ambivalence? There are vast stretches I haven't yet come to terms with, especially in his later and very early work. For me, he hit a peak in the late 1970s and early 1980s. "Own Face" is an extraordinary book. Likewise "The Crystal Text." I used to think he wrote too much, but then I realized that quantity, in this case, is an integral part of the entire project. You couldn't ask him to write less, anymore than you could limit Jordan to a thousand poems. I have about 100 favorite Coolidge poems. I think somewhere he calls this "the plethoric mode." I usually like short poems, hence my interest in Williams, Creeley, Niedecker, etc... Coolidge I like both short and long. I started playing drums because of him. What better inspiration? And all that cave and mineral imagery...