At the heart of my life is the idea that I don't ever want anything to ever change. That's the basic tenet.

I came to poetry because I felt I couldn't live properly in the real world.

At the heart of my life is the idea that I don't ever want anything to ever change. That's the basic tenet.

I think the reason I've published so few books is that I have a pretty high expectation of self-reinvention between books and I would prefer to have been in this world and published fewer works than I would publishing the books that would reveal the process of the changes.

I wanted many of the poems to have long legs. At first I was calling them clothespin poems, before I knew what I was doing. The lines seem pulled on either end, tight and taut against the wind.

I want a poem which is made of compression, passion, precision, symmetry, & disruption.

Something I have "authority" on is animal rights. If I were not already so deep into the path I've taken, deep in the woods, I would probably work with animal rights activism because that's really where my heart lies. I think our relationships with animals are sacred and horrific. I've been a vegetarian since I was sixteen. What God said we are allowed to eat anything that does not have thumbs?