I prefer always to think that I am creating a book, not a series of stand-alone poems.

You can get a sense of the wonderful power of framing by holding your fingers up in a kind of square, walking around the room and framing it differently - how that changes the nature of what you think the room is like.

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.

Language is as fragile as the little alpine plant.

For me, failure has to be acknowledged, needs to be faced in some way.

I think those of us who use language are always trying for this, trying to keep everything from floating away by trying to write about it despite failure.

A number of poems don't work alone. They need to fit together to work.