There is something very satisfactory about being in the middle of something.

Who gets to choose what battle takes her down?

I'm addicted to email, but other than that, there are practical things - being able to buy a book on the internet that you can't find in your local bookshop. This could be a lifeline if you live further from the sources.

You are almost not free, if you are teaching a group of graduate students, to become friends with one of them. I don't mean anything erotically charged, just a friendship.

The pleasure that I take in writing gets me interested in writing a poem. It's not a statement about what I think anybody else should be doing. For me, it's an interesting tension between interior and exterior.

Good writing gives energy, whatever it is about.

Paris is a wonderful city. I can't say I belong to an especially anglophone community.