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.

In my case, performance is part of the medium. Sometimes I feel that it's my main medium, and that the presentation of my poems on the page is secondary.

I don't think I did write any poems to fill narrative gaps. Not consciously, anyway. As much as possible, I try to discover my poems' subject matter through the act of writing, instead of deciding ahead of time what my poems will be about.

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 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 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.

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?