Though it does seem like I have written an immense amount of work, over the years I have pushed the pause button. I have poems that I haven't sent out for publication, mostly based on political/social issues.

Visual media is the dominant art form in our present day culture, whereas poetry is, at best, a proxy. Yet poetry and film are both "dream factories."

The "biggest" poems I ever made are based on the psychological principal of the "Johari Window:" what the self freely shares with others; what the self hides from others; what others hide from the self; and what is unknown to the self and others.

Jean Valentine and Jane Cooper were my professors at Sarah Lawrence College - and they were uncompromised in their art. They gave me models of how to live one's life as a poet.

Not that a poem can "hurt" someone the same way a physical blow can or even a mean remark can...I just felt unsure that my tone would be taken the right way and/or unsure of my own writing, that I couldn't maintain the tone I wanted.

As a teenager, I loved acting, painting, photography, and making films with my friend's Super 8 camera. But I always loved writing the best. I chose writing even before I knew poetry was available to me.

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.