In addition to writing in received forms, I have also had fun making up forms - Möbius strips and visual poems, particularly.

While poetry was less professionalized than it is now, I still had this urge to win prizes and see my work in magazines, to get an "A," as though poetry could be graded. I wish I had been more patient and less frantic about getting published.

I am interested in the confines of the page and busting through/off the page as well. A writer must let go of the line when writing prose poems, which brings its own pleasures.

What has stayed true in my life as a writer is my dedication to writing - I try to write every day, no matter what - and the joy that writing has given me.

I have no idea, actually, where I fit in, in terms of poetry camps. At AWP conferences, I have been on panels about humor, collaboration, visual poetry, confessional poetry, gender, and the body, as well as tributes to Edward Field and Albert Goldbarth. I felt at home on all of them - most poets straddle more than one school.

My advice to my younger self would have been, "Chill. Concentrate on the poems. Everything else will work itself out."

I am open to squeezing in whatever I can in this wonderful life. Instead of asking, "Is that all there is?" I seem, lately, to be always saying, "Wow!"