When the music created by the sounds and ordering of the words matches the thrust of the meanings of the words, then a radiant state of awareness can occur.

I have thought for many years that the audience any creative writer imagines has a great effect on what gets written.

I do love writing prose interspersed with the poetry of other people. Their rhythms break into my prose and create a connection.

What triggers a poem for me is not the same as what triggers an essay. My mind is geared now to looking for, or to watching out for, the image that attracts my attention or the phrase or the strange juxtaposition that strikes me bodily, or an odd question or supposition.

I don't write or think too much about the word "salvation." I might; I probably should. We are such needy creatures, needing to be saved, to feel we are saved or might be, however we define ourselves, however we define that word.

I've spent much of my life being attuned to watching for an image or a phrase that can trigger what might be a poem - could become a poem.

To my mind, most prose poems are more prose than poetry. They don't possess most of the qualities of a poem.