Humor and absurdism are inevitable. If you look at our current massive flow of consumer products and digital communication and related media from a sort of astute perspective and carefully state what you see you can't help but sounding like you're joking.

Writing essays and teaching composition have helped me immensely in writing poetry, because they've forced me to focus on the structure of ideas.

The language itself is what gets me interested in writing. It's weird to me that words exist. Never a dull moment with words. They're a layer between our minds and the physical reality around us, obviously, but the layer seems like it's always in flux, like an asteroid belt, constantly moving.

Nothing is as easy or natural as consumer brands want us to think - no problem is as resolvable. Your hair will fall out, eventually. Yet we do have these brands, and we line our shelves with them. There's an inherent irony.

Surprise keeps the reader awake. The only alternative is to continue saying what the reader is expecting. What fun is that?

Negative space is important. When I teach students to read critically I advise them to look for what the author isn't saying just as carefully as for what he or she is.

I don't really want to write fiction at all. I don't see why fiction is necessary when we have real life already confusing enough.