My father was a frustrated writer. I think he wanted to write the great American novel.

I think Visions of Cody is the most radical book in terms of poetic stretch and the way Jack Kerouac is able to incorporate documentation and incorporate the live tape recording of Neal and so on.

Your compassion travels beyond your own inner circle. And then you breathe out an alternative version where you mentally and emotionally and psychologically purify the poisons. So indeed, the generative idea is in the crux of this practice and of my propensity toward poetry, which is a practice of the imagination.

I was not ever hitchhiking alone. I've done solo train trips but I've never driven myself alone.

The text for me is the musical score. I'm the instrument. My voice is the instrument. My voice is articulating the sounds which are coming through the imaginings and visitations in my head, and I'm making these sounds but I've selected them from an ocean of sound.

My mother started taking us to church when I was in seventh or eight grade. That was always a question, Do you believe in God?

My love of poetry comes from the "actualization" I experienced in the poetry of others. And I was reading it silently and there is deep pleasure in that intimacy, a mind-to-mind transfer going on. All the music is there, inherently. And mystery as well.