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.
Allison JosephI switch between fixed forms and free verse often, and enjoy being a poet who can "swing both ways," so to speak.
Allison JosephWhen poets die, other poets take it personally, almost as an affront. A lot of us "left behind" are thinking that poetry is the one thing keeping us alive and present, so what does it mean when one of our ranks chooses to end his or her life? There's an anger beneath the grief, you know? That anger and grief, in turn, breeds other poems from those of us left behind.
Allison JosephPart of elegy is confrontation - not just with the idea of death, but with the person who has died.
Allison Joseph