I Think Of My Poems As Personal

Poetry Helps Me Understand Who I Am. It Helps Me Understand The World Around Me. But Above All, What Poetry Has Taught Me Is The Fact That I Need To Embrace Mystery In Order To Be Completely Human.

I Define Poetry As Celebration And Confrontation. When We Witness Something, Are We Responsible For What We Witness? That's An On-going Existential Question. Perhaps We Are And Perhaps There's A Kind Of Daring, A Kind Of Necessary Energetic Questioning. Because Often I Say It's Not What We Know, It's What We Can Risk Discovering.

My Great-grandfather Melvin Had Been A Carpenter - So Was My Father - And They Taught Me The Value Of Tools: Saws, Hammers, Chisels, Files And Rulers. It All Dealt With Conciseness And Precision. It Eliminated Guesswork. One Has To Know His Tools, So He Doesn't Work Against Himself.

It Wasn't A Deliberate Decision To Become A Poet. It Was Something I Found Myself Doing - And Loving. Language Became An Addiction.

I Close My Eyes And Can See Men Drawing Lines In The Dust. America Pushes Through The Membrane Of Mist And Smoke, And I'm A Small Boy Again In Bogalusa.