The Ambiguities Of Language, Both In Terms

We Sometimes Received - And I Would Read - 200 Manuscripts A Week. Some Of Them Were Wonderful, Some Were Terrible; Most Were Mediocre. It Was Like The Gifts Of The Good And Bad Fairies.

Perhaps First And Foremost Is The Challenge Of Taking What I Find As A Reader And Making It Into A Poem That, Primarily, Has To Be A Plausible Poem In English.

The Pleasure That I Take In Writing Gets Me Interested In Writing A Poem. It's Not A Statement About What I Think Anybody Else Should Be Doing. For Me, It's An Interesting Tension Between Interior And Exterior.

I Have Experienced Healing Through Other Writers' Poetry, But There's No Way I Can Sit Down To Write In The Hope A Poem Will Have Healing Potential. If I Do, I'll Write A Bad Poem.

I'm Alternatingly Brilliant And Witless-and Sleepless: Bed Is Just A Swamp To Roll In.