All Pain Is The Same. Only The

I Understand That It's Incredibly Difficult To Watch What's Happening On The News Every Day And Not Become Inured To It. I've Fallen Victim To That Myself, Wanting To Look Away.

There's Something Immediate About The Experience Of Reading A Poem. It Makes Sense In My Own Mind, But I'm Trying To Figure Out A Way To Articulate It... It's Like Looking At A Painting: You're Able To Take In The Totality Of The Work All At Once, And So Processing Whatever Information That Painting Is Giving You Is Almost Secondary To Simply Apprehending What's In Front Of You.

I Know That The Writers I Read And Admire All Have An Influence On My Work, But Trying To Determine To What Degree Any Particular Piece Of Input Changes The Way I Think About Writing Seems Counterproductive.

I'm Always Most Interested In Writing About Things That I Don't Understand.

There Are Definitely Connections Between Poems, But I Wanted Each To Stand On Its Own. I Guess It Goes Back To The Idea Of Trying To Zoom In And Out, And To Modulate, So There Are Different Ways Of Looking At Any Experience For The Reader. Even Having Short Poems And Long Poems - There Has To Be Some Kind Of Variation In The Experience Of Reading As A Whole.