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

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.

Different drinks have different metaphorical weight. Wine's heady, gin is poisonous, vodka's cold, and beer is plain boring. In real life, I'm a big fan of boxed white wine, much to the dismay of my more refined friends.

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

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.

There IS a difference between poetry and prose! Poems should be sonically charged and new to the ear.

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.