I've been kind of submerged in my own little geographic location for a really long time in Venice Beach

I tried not to make God this big deal in Joan's life. She treats God like a friend: she's nice to him some days, and other days mean, and then cries when she needs help.

I don't think it's always good to read lots of poetry

One of my good friends is Christian, goes to church every Sunday, very religious. I'm fine with that and I will never judge her.

I think any time you have too much education in one certain field, that can sometimes play against you

After I saw my first poem published, I became interested in the immortalization of words and the fact that you could put something out there that you felt and that meant something to you, and that it could be interpreted by many different people to mean many different things.

And a lot of times in slam poetry I feel like people are so worried about the performance that the words might not be as strong.