There's something immediate about the experience of reading a poem - whether it's the music or some other element of it - that just seems to access another part of the brain. You know, Charles Olson talks about this transfer of energy that happens between the writer and the reader of the poem. I guess there's something essential to me about acknowledging upfront the immensity of it - the difficulty of it - and even allowing that to be the subject.

I've been writing poems and stories since I was about 13.

It's not just: you get off the plane, you're back home, everything's fine. Maybe the physical danger ends, but soldiers are still deeply at risk of being injured in a different way.

There is a sharp distinction between what is remembered, what is told and what is true.

One of the things my service in Iraq did give me was this freedom from fear of failure or any kind of expectations that I had to take a standard path.

Poetry and prose are of equal importance to me as a reader, and there doesn't seem to be much difference in my own writing.

But I remember being told that the truth does not depend on being believed.