Usually form seems to find me in the process of writing a poem, though I have nothing against starting out with the form.

I have poetic failures all the time. Many failed poems. I try not to publish those, though some have slipped into each book, since I can't always tell they're failures until later... or I don't want to admit that they are.

"Confessional poetry" is another one of those labels. It goes in and out of fashion.

Writing a poem is always a process of subtracting: you start with all of language available to you, and you choose a smaller field.

Encountering rhyme out of the blue is like finding a long-lost twin (fraternal), or a suitcase that closes with a particularly satisfying click.

In my own writing, I've mostly abandoned end-rhyme, but wordplay is still a huge part of my process.

Whether you're talking about political borders or aesthetic divisions (and clearly, the political ones have much more tragic consequences), it seems like once they are created, we want to patrol them, enforce them.