The earth has always supported me in all my endeavors. I trust it.

I never liked the philosophy that you can have everything and be everything and that something is wrong if you don't want that. I'm terrible at multitasking and find it hard to believe that no one protests this general trend of using the rhetoric of self actualization to sell you faster and faster phones and computers, BlackBerrys, etc.

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.

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

What I like best about teaching is that it allows me to explore my own interest with a group.

In Chicago, if you tell someone you're a writer, they look at you suspiciously - as if to say "yeah, right." In New York, people don't question the idea. If you say you're a writer, that's what you are.