I like the dance between sustained focus and digression that the long poem invites. A controlling metaphor helps to sustain the long poem.

I think I started writing as a young person because I felt a lot of psychic confusion and emotional confusion, and writing was a way to sort it out. You know, to externalize it, sort it out, put it down, look at it, and hopefully it would become clearer.

I'm extremely interested in science as the mythos within which I live. Science tells me what kind of animal I am, what kind of a universe I live in. It's always deepening my understanding of the natural world.

When we're writing anything, we're bearing witness to the time we live in and how it's different from any other time in history.

I had wanted for so many years to feel that writing really was at the center of my life, not something I did in my spare time. So the writing and teaching feel in some way to be one thing - the personal engagement and the social engagement good partners.

I'm really interested in culture because it is such a powerful human force, particularly in America where we think it's all about the individual.

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.