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

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.

I think a lot of the guys I know and a lot of people I've talked to, what they want is very often what most people want, a kind of simple life, a livelihood, a family, people who care about them, people they can care about. I think vets on the whole want the same things that everybody else does.

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.

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

I know that the writers I read and admire all have an influence on my work, but trying to determine to what degree any particular piece of input changes the way I think about writing seems counterproductive.

My personal opinion is that if someone writes honestly about war, it will inherently be anti-war.