Poetry isn't an efficient tool for preserving experience, any more than it's an efficient mode of communication, but who says that it should be efficient?

I don't think I'd ever get any better as a poet if I didn't push myself, very deliberately, to grow. My best poems surprise me, as they should, but I fight them at every turn, possibly just because I'm stubborn.

Start listening to what you say. Are your comments and ideas negative? You aren't going become positive if you always say negative things. Do you hear yourself say"I could never do that","I never have any luck","I never get things right". Wow - that's negative self-talk! Try saying"I am going to do that","I am so lucky""I always try to get things right". Can you hear how much better that sounds?

For me, intuitive thinking means associative thinking; intuition causes us to introduce narrative or figurative elements into a poem before we're able to explain why those elements belong.

I'm a mix; I'm sure some of my Canadian friends find me very American, both in person and on the page.

As a species, we create tools to control our environment. What excites my imagination is wilderness: our materials' ability to escape our control.

I can't read my poem "Distracted by an Ergonomic Bicycle" without thinking of Seattle, where the events of the poem took place, and I can't read "In Defense of the Semicolon" without thinking of Toronto - but why should that matter to anyone else? If another reader imagines "In Defense of the Semicolon" taking place in New Orleans, great.