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

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.

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.

Whether the poet is living or dead, they're part of our imaginative community.

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

I'm much more capable of cutting back than of expanding. I've gotten very surgical about poems.

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