Part of elegy is confrontation - not just with the idea of death, but with the person who has died.

I find it hard to write poems in reaction to world/national events unless there's a way in that's so evident to me that I can't deny the urge to write about such events. It takes me a while to gather the evidence, you know?

Poetry is such an ancient art, and I consider myself young within that art.

I write to be recorder, observer, participant, and sometimes, even judge. I want to engage the world as I see it with my whole self - all of those different aspects of it.

Part of elegy is confrontation - not just with the idea of death, but with the person who has died.

Editing is work, and it's hard to do while working on one's own writing.

I do bring my teaching together with my writing. I make students write in class, and do the same prompts I give them. I'm always on the lookout for teaching poems - poems that inspire me and my students to write poems in response.