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

Joining the military is not to be taken lightly. You're putting every part of yourself at risk, not just your body but your moral and spiritual centre.

I guess I find the boundaries between poetry and prose to be somewhat permeable.

I understood that 'The Yellow Birds' would be a peculiar representation of the experience of being at war. I intended it to be so.

To understand the world, one’s place in it, is to be always at the risk of drowning.

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.

It reminded me of talking, how what is said is never quite what was thought, and what is heard is never quite what was said. It wasn’t much in the way of comfort, but everything has a little failure in it, and we still make do somehow.