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

I admire the poetic relationship to place as enacted in Wallace Stevens' poems; his poetics strikes me as an argument against the restraints of realism.

One cannot have "success" in poetry. If I wanted to be successful, I'd have become a lawyer.

I have no precise idea of who makes up my readership. I'm surprised when I discover people have read my poems at all.

Some poems take two to three years to finish. Rarely, a poem will arrive whole. It's nice when that happens. However, process has become so grueling for me over the past few years that when one of my students uses the word "inspiration" I practically shriek with laughter.

It takes a certain kind of mind to narrate, to work through character motivation, to be unforgiving to one's writer-self when it comes down to creating the minutiae of detail. Writing fiction requires stamina, a sense of how people's lives work, how people work toward and against one another and, above all, precision.

I find the elitism and blatant provincialism of many (Manhattan-based) New Yorkers unattractive. Just as place can be an identity crutch that helps a person feel individual, place can be a crutch in poetry.