My books have come many years apart and each one seems to reflect a period of experience. Ending the book is like putting a period on a certain movement. Interior and external - both.

Spanish and English have such different music, and in my own poetry I feel much less drawn to fluid sounds than I do toward the hard sounds and rhythms that come out of the Anglo-Saxon roots of English.

From the beginning. I was a poem-writing child. I wrote little novels in my composition book when I was eight, nine years old.

Keep growing. Stay awake. Beware of gurus. Keep a low overhead.

My books have come many years apart and each one seems to reflect a period of experience. Ending the book is like putting a period on a certain movement. Interior and external - both.

Teaching has given me a community that cares about poetry, and I'm grateful for that.

Rhythms and sounds are often the first thing I hear and want in a poem, so I can't imagine trying to translate something without at least being able to hear what it sounds like.