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.

I wrote the poems in Charms Against Lightning one by one, over almost a decade, and I did not write them toward any theme or narrative. But once I really got serious about putting together a book, I began to see that in fact there were themes across the poems, if only because my own obsessions had brought me back time and again to the same ground. I realized that any ordering of the poems would determine how those themes developed over the manuscript, and how the collection's dramatic conflicts were resolved.

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?

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.

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

William Shakespeare tried hard to see every facet of every question, probably because he was more interested in questions than in answers. That's a big part of what makes him great, in my opinion.

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.