I am fascinated with criminal law because it is as rigorous as a poem and because it is based on what has been written down even before one has committed a crime.

I think American is very democratic in allowing different hues of language and parts of speech to commingle. William Logan once wrote that I had something of a fetish for what he called "Haute Couture Vulgarity."

Confession may well be a dirty word in poetry.

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.

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?

Poetry is the skin that I have between my body and the world's body.