After my marriage ended, I had an urge to skip that part of my life completely in terms of poetry, not publish anything at all about it.

Unlike Woody Allen, I would be happy to be part of any (poetry) club that would have me.

The spoken word community was significant in making me want to write accessible and urgent poems. Bob Holman, in particular, was an impressive figure.

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

I still write what I need to write - but I can't deny that something has changed when I think about sending work out. Maybe it's just growing older and feeling more responsible to the world.

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.

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