"I admired Crane very much; in fact, I still do...I have always been interested in that dichotomy and in that great paradox in our history. The clash between the pastoral and the technological, and Crane wrote about that, as did Whitman, as did Leo Marx, as have a lot of people. And certainly that has been one of the themes in my writing; that appeals to me a great deal; and Crane did a very good job with it in his poems, especially in the conception of "The Bridge" itself as a narrative. I like that very much. So he was a very important figure to me at the time and, though he is not as important to me now, he remains important. I think he was an important writer, and I felt about him at one time as I feel about Emily Dickinson now."