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.

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.

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

Even your own memory changes over time because of circumstances or even because your body changes.

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.