I tend to gravitate toward the realm of superstition (cures and such) and odd scientific facts (like bioluminescent shrimp and fistulated cows). I like the intimacy that I often find in the grotesque.

I prefer assonance and internal rhyme to end rhyme. I mean, the sonnet already looks like a box. Best not to get too boxed in, though.

My obsessions tend to cluster, so I often have families of poems in which only a couple of them make it to the book. It can be satisfying to banish poems to my "crappy poems" file.

I tend to employ braided narrative threads in the lyric, so often echoes (of phrases or images) will occur and will hit my ear so I can shape different resonances and shifts in tone.

I'm very interested in the materiality of language. I wonder if, perhaps, this comes from my background in the visual arts. I was a potter for a number of years and earned a BFA in art before going to graduate school for creative writing.

I tend to view the superstitions or fragments of myth as triggers for lyric inquiry. I also find I think of this kind of language as ars poetica - if we can find the right combination of words, we can make something improbably or extraordinary happen.

I tend to gravitate toward the realm of superstition (cures and such) and odd scientific facts (like bioluminescent shrimp and fistulated cows). I like the intimacy that I often find in the grotesque.