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 like it when poems are challenging, when they concern matters important and personal to the author.

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.

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

Confessional poetry is, to my mind, more slippery than poems that are sloppily autobiographical; I find the confessional mode much more akin to dramatic monologue.

I consider poetry my vocation, not my "career." My career is as a university professor; that's what pays the bills.

Because I wake up late, my day is often short. I'm much more active in the evenings, during which I alternately read, write, needle-point, smoke, email, and despair over my decision last June to put my television and DVD player out on the street because I wasn't getting enough work done.