What I like about teaching is the discipline of finding words to unpack the artistic process. And I admire the drive in students who want to write, the mystery of how artistic talent unfolds.

I am a result of what has happened on this planet - how could I find the art to say that? I can't, and yet, I am drawn to it because of the enormity of it. That seems really important.

I came to teaching late - not until my forties - which is one reason why I'm not burned out.

What I like about teaching is the discipline of finding words to unpack the artistic process. And I admire the drive in students who want to write, the mystery of how artistic talent unfolds.

The environment is becoming so much a central concern, I see environmental concerns just bleeding into poetries all over the place. My hope is that we won't have these environmental poets tucked over here and everybody else doing cool stuff with language and consciousness elsewhere, but that all of it will become one thing.

Sometimes it gets talked about as if life is all about the individual, and I don't think it is. I'm really interested in what writing can contribute to a kind of cultural intelligence.

One needs to be on guard against expecting external powers to decide when you can take yourself seriously as an artist. It can be a long wait - and lead to endless appetite.