I've always been interested in the fragility of things, and with special urgency now because of climate change, but also because of the accidents of reading.

I know that in some ways I operate from a kind of antiquated interest in imagery, while many contemporary poets are not so interested in imagery. I think part of it is my training, and just my visual sense of things.

I can't move my body slowly. I can't move the line slowly. So I end up with way too much, often opaque to me later.

The days start to be charged not because tomorrow you're leaving, but because in three weeks you're leaving. The future impinges. So you start to think about the frame.

If it's a drop of dew, it will dissolve.

I'm in California, so I know people who are natives who tell me there's lots of weather here, but it's not the same as being in Vermont. Since I grew up on the East Coast I miss that weather all the time. You'd think I'd get used to not having it, but I don't.

One of the reasons I like immersing myself in different texts, putting myself in the company of other writers, is that they do change your vocabulary. They change what you write about or they change the length of lines.