I want each poem to be ambiguous enough that its meaning can shift, depending on the reader's own frame of reference, and depending on the reader's mood. That's why negative capability matters; if the poet stops short of fully controlling each poem's meaning, the reader can make the poem his or her own.

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.

I like poems that affect me emotionally and also provoke me to further, deeper thought. I enjoy challenge, but not, I think, for its own sake.

It makes sense to me that the polyglot wouldn't know what language he dreamed in.

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?

If poems very different from my own bring pleasure to a group of readers, who am I to say that the poems should have been written differently?

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.