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.

I often write from memory by walking around and talking to myself. Even when I'm working at a computer I write out loud, so that I can hear the poem's rhythm.

I want to reiterate that my understanding of the poem is not the poem's core, true meaning. Once a poem goes out into the world, the poet is just one more reader.

I believe strongly in what John Keats called negative capability: the trait or practice that allows a poet to remain in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason. For Keats, William Shakespeare exemplified negative capability, and I do think it's extraordinary that for all the thousands of pages Shakespeare left behind, we really don't know much about Shakespeare's own personality or opinions.

Years ago I used to set my alarm for 4 am, so that I could wake up in the middle of a dream and move directly into writing. I guess my favorite poems contain a mixture of intuitive and analytical thought.

For me, poetry is a way of thinking, and like many poets, I'm driven by the idea of trying to find the impossible, perfect words: the words that will hold my subject.

When I started reciting my own poems in public, I worried that it would seem too theatrical, but now I find recitation very natural, because it allows me to address audiences directly.