I don't write every day, but if I go more than a couple of months without writing, I begin to get a little nervous. I usually have bursts of poems. Five or six come together and then I slack off and want to do something else.

I tend to like poems that are short as well as funny. I love Joe Brainard and Aram Saroyan. And I think their sense of humor and minimalist approach are pretty radical.

Sometimes you get lit students that know a lot about the canon but virtually nothing about contemporary poetry and vice versa. I like to mix things up.

I tend to be a pretty spacey and scattered person, so anything that makes me feel "grounded" comes as a welcome relief.

I don't like speed. I would have made a terrible Futurist. Even when I did take drugs, I never liked amphetamines and much preferred the slow taffy-pull of time that you get with opiates.

In a machine, every part has a function. In a poem, every word needs to be there.

There are fewer and fewer philosophies that everyone subscribes to. We don't seem to have as many beliefs in common as we used to. Also, we interact much more online. We have all these gadgets to help us manage different aspects of our lives.