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.

There are some books in which every poem is a facet of the same thing. So the book is like a piece of music. And there are books of poems that I love so much that I carry them around with me.

I love stories, but writing fiction is another craft and I don't feel as if I have it.

I worked in an art gallery for a few years, doing administrative assistance stuff, and it exposed me to what the whole world of art dealers and the art market was about.

People want poetry and need it - we need what's not honored by the corporate mentality that has taken over. It gives people a language for responding to the violence, the shallowness, the near-nothings, the toys we're all supposed to want. It's a way for people to be able to connect with themselves.

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

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