New York is one of those places people tend to derive a sense of identity from - as if, were to you to remove them from the City, they'd turn limp and colorless.

The cool thing about having a book is that it takes on its own life. Once it's in the world, you can't follow it. You'd have to have a pretty fantastic surveillance system to track its migration.

When asked what I'd be if I weren't a writer, I'm tempted to respond with one of father's favorite phrases, one I despised while growing up: "I hate 'what-ifs.'"

One of the reasons poetry is such an amazing genre to work with is because it constantly reinvents itself and re-negotiates its terms with the reader.

When fiction writers like my poems I feel like I've hit the jackpot.

Place is extremely important to my work because I am always pulling landscape imagery into my poems.

I love teaching poetry writing. Students come into the class thinking poetry has to be one way, then leave having created pieces that are wholly original, that have - quite literally - never been made before.