We're nature. Our minds are nature. Our desire to make poetry is nature.

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'm just really interested in the interface of the individual with the collective. I think that's where the arts live.

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

For me teaching has provided community and livelihood and the satisfaction of passing along what I've learned to others.

I'm always trying to bring as many poetic properties as possible to the essay without making it too overburdened.

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.