I realized that there was an intellectual content in music, a kind of thinking, that I would never be able to hear.

When I took my first poetry class, I felt that I could understand the relationships between words and the formal qualities of language in a way I would never understand music.

I studied opera, and when I left conservatory I told myself I would never sing in public again.

I am a gay writer, absolutely. And in no way does that fact limit the reach or importance of what I write.

I went back to graduate school because I wanted to avoid being a professional, to try to piece together a life that would let me avoid the tenure race and full-time teaching.

My first MFA was in poetry, and it was very much part of a professional trajectory leading to life as a professor. But in my second and third years at Harvard, I realized I didn't want an academic life.

The academy is an incredibly sheltered world, and I do think it's important for writers to get out from under that shelter, at least for a while, to see what the world looks like from outside it.