Five tender apricots in a blue bowl, a brief and exact promise of things to come.

I had the urge to examine my life in another culture and move beyond what I knew.

I was born and grew up in Fitzgerald, way down in south Georgia. It was a mill town and my family ran the cotton mill. My grandfather was mayor many times and my family felt deeply rooted to that spot.

There is no technique, there is just the way to do it. Now, are we going to measure or are we going to cook?

Splendid to arrive alone in a foreign country and feel the assault of difference. Here they are all along, busy with living; they don't talk or look like me. The rhythm of their day is entirely different; I am foreign.

Poems give you the lives of others and then circle in on your own inner world.

The longer you are in a place, the more you get under its layers.