I Write Poems To Find Out Why

They Are Asleep. This Is The Condition They Prefer. They Are Afraid Of The World And Sleep Is A Way Of Dealing With Their Fear. Someday They Will Wake. Perhaps Something Frightful Will Happen. Indeed, There Is No Better Invitation To The Frightful Than Ignorance - That Is, Sleep. (29)

One Writes A Poem When One Is So Taken Up By An Emotional Concept That One Is Unable To Remain Silent.

For The Past Thirty Years Or So, Much American Poetry Has Been Marked By An Earnestness That Rejects The Comic. This Has Nothing To Do With Seriousness. The Comic Can Be Very Serious. The Trouble With The Earnest Is That It Seeks To Be Commended. It Seeks To Be Praised For Its Intention More Than For What It Is Saying.

Louise Gluck, C.k. Williams, Thomas Lux. A Lot Of The Poets That I Like Are The Ones That Influenced Me As A Writer.

Baudelaire's L'héautontimorouménos Was Long Seen To Be A Sexual Sadomasochistic Poem, It Is Now Generally Accepted That The Poem Is About Writing Poetry.