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."

I always wanted to be some kind of writer - I wrote plays and songs and "books" before I realized living and breathing people still wrote poems.

Writing is performative - and while, yes, the words in essence will be there "forever," poems are often about ecstatic moments rather than trying to pin down a particular truth of an event.

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

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.

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

I began to think about the extent to which nude and semi-nude female bodies are commonplace in our present day culture and how young girls might be affected. I wondered if, at some point, this bombardment of images could possibly get boring and that concealing - rather than revealing - would awaken sexual desire. I don't think that will ever be the case, of course, but I was intrigued to write a poem in which dressing was just as erotic as undressing.