I like to use research to enlarge the poem. And sometimes a rhetorical or syntactical gesture stitches the poem along.

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

As poets, we don't accept oppression; we are about a freedom of spirit, or whatever you want to call it. I think environmental concerns have to go to the deep place, so we speak from a place of great empathy for the planet - for the disadvantaged people, animals, places, cultures.

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

I think you have to live inside your contradictions and find a way to accept that that's the human condition - to be forced to live in contradiction.

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.

I like to use research to enlarge the poem. And sometimes a rhetorical or syntactical gesture stitches the poem along.