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.

I like poems that immediately claim my attention, instead of taking my attention for granted. At first read, I want to feel compelled to pick up the poem again; I want to be curious about its byways and secret corners.

Whenever I visit my family in Canada, I remind myself that what many Americans would consider forthright, many Canadians would consider overbearing.

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

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?

My ideal reader is somebody who reads my poems out loud.

I do own CDs by Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, and Joni Mitchell, but I don't think of them as being major influences on my writing.